


Close Watch

by Cosmicola



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: And Uhotty (a little), Angst, Bones and Spock are friends, Everyone cries a lot, Grief, Like at some point this might look like Spones developing, M/M, Sarek is The Best, Sickness, Slow Build, but it's a Spirk fic, honestly this is 125 chapters long, like the slowest slow build, much angst, spirk, there will be funny scenes too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2018-10-25 10:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 45
Words: 58,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10762161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmicola/pseuds/Cosmicola
Summary: Shortly after the incidents on Altamid, Jim and Spock, still on Yorktown while the new Enterprise is under construction, are experiencing strange dreams that are not only unsettling but also begin to affect them physically. When they can’t afford to ignore them anymore, they discover that it has to be the same thing that haunts them, yet they can’t find the cause of it. With the help of Bones and part of the crew they travel to New Vulcan where they hope to find advice from Vulcan healers. All they know is that it has to do with Ambassador Spock, since the dreams started when he died.But as the journey continues and Jim appears to be physically stable, Spock’s condition worsens by the day and before they even arrive on Vulcan, it’s almost too late. Bones struggles to keep Spock alive, Jim and Spock struggle with growing feelings – and they are all oblivious to the being that is watching them very closely …





	1. #1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Close Watch](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/287052) by Cosmicola. 



> Hi!  
> This is a fanfiction of two German friends who weren't all that happy with the new AOS movies, especially ST Beyond.  
> "Close Watch" is the result of a two-month long writing marathon. It's already completed in the original German version and at this point, 8/125 chapters have been translated to English.  
> This translation is by no means perfect. There will be awkward sentences and sometimes it will be plain wrong. Sorry about that.  
> We very much hope you will enjoy it nonetheless.  
> This is, as stated above, extremely long and somewhat the definition of a slow burn. Be prepared for angst, grief, more angst and utter heartbreak. But also for The Amazing Bones and very, very funny scenes (which will have nothing to do with a horse-sized chicken, how could they?). You will laugh. You will cry.
> 
> Have fun!
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to the very best beta reader in the world who also happens to love this thing as much as we do.

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

Something grabbed him in his sleep, pulling him towards itself, and had he known one second that he was dreaming, he lost awareness the next.

There was a throbbing, he could feel it. A vibration surrounding him. That was why he was here. He was waiting. He had been waiting for so long. He was vibrating as well, in all his colours, stretched out in his whole, glowing, yes, he had to glow. Impatiently he stepped up to the throbbing, and his mind urged him to recognize it in all his facets, but he couldn’t. Who was he? What was he doing? One moment his own light filled him up, only to startle him the next, he startled himself, and what was he waiting for?

Then the vibration had reached him. There was a feeling of wholeness, as he wanted to embrace the vibration with his own presence. But the throbbing didn’t return his greeting, remained silent, possessed no colours. Unconscious. How was this possible? He began to speak, but had no grasp on his words. As if he weren’t the owner of his consciousness anymore.

The jolt with which the throbbing was pulled away from him let him stagger back. No, he thought, don’t! Yet he didn’t even know what he was losing there.

He looked desperately after _him_. _Who_ was he looking after? A soul, and it dashed away in somewhat dreamlike demeanour. In what?, he thought. What a crap. He almost had laughed, but the next moment pain overcame him. This was not right. This was not fair. He struggled to keep his visible form. Already he was in danger to drown, within himself and his all-consuming longing, whose goal he didn’t recognise. It was longing and missing, both at the same time, burning.

As he definitely feared to lose himself, he detected it: the presence which was ever and always capable of soothing him. For which he had had to wait for a long time as well and which was now waiting alongside him. Great serenity and silent laughter, but both weren’t meant for him anymore. No? Were they really not? But …

 

Jim cast his eyes open. His head was throbbing, and he felt a dull pain in his chest which forced him to breath shallowly and worked its way up into his throat. His forehead was wet from sweat, as well as his body. What the hell had this dream been?

He wasn’t fully awake yet. With some delay he grew aware of the breathing sounds next him. Very close to him. To call them a snore would have been too much. Bones.

Carefully Jim sat up and looked around: he could remember the first two bottles of whiskey which were lying empty on the floor of his quarters. But not at all the third which still contained remains of unknown content.

His chest was still hurting. Maybe he had fallen asleep in a stupid position while being drunk. The throbbing headache he also credited on the alcohol, wouldn’t have been the first time, and he had to get up only for the second shift. The cold sweat however, which covered him like a sticky blanket, made him strangely restless and aware of the fading dream. The combination of both caused him to strongly focus on his next goal: if he didn’t want to be pushed directly to sickbay to be tortured with dozens of hyposprays, he had to escape Bones.


	2. #2

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

A pull, as if the galaxy was shuddering in the universe. A shiver, as if souls were violently pushed to places they didn’t belong.

Finally.

Finally?

No.

No?

A falseness, unparalleled, a desperate striving in one direction, pulling and dragging in another, brutality that surpassed physical boundaries and created dreams where none should be.

A pain, four times.

Four times?

Minds coming closer to each other, dangerously, excitingly, and yet still couldn’t reach each other – mustn’t reach each other.

Because … it … wasn’t …

Not what?

And these souls … why did they circle each other like two stars longing to burn up within each other?

These souls … were …

 

Vulcans were capable of holding their breath much longer than humans. But at some point, it got too long for them as well, and Spock thought his gasping had to be heard throughout the whole ship as he – in vain at first – struggled for air.

Fear of death was not logical – but the fear that had taken hold of him wasn’t interested in logic, and it had more than one origin.

As he eventually was able to breath in, his arms clenched around his body without his own doing, and he felt his heart race. A pulse of two hundred forty was perfectly normal for a Vulcan, but three hundred unhealthy, and three hundred fifty dangerous.

Unable to move he concentrated on breathing and his racing heart, on the pain which shot through his body and stretched to his limbs until he thought he must burn up, and all hairs on his body stood on end.

Vulcans didn’t dream. They meditated to empty their mind, to process events of the day and to prevent dreams. If they didn’t, they started to dream again – but dreams in which suppressed emotions unfolded weren’t desirable.

He _had_ meditated, like in all the weeks before. How was it possible for him to dream? Even if his meditation hadn’t been sufficient, how could a dream cause such physical reactions?

What dream …?

His pulse almost seemed to quicken even more, however hardly he tried to concentrate on calming it down.

He … had dreamed … of … he couldn’t quite comprehend it, and as he tried to grasp this dream, his breathing faltered again. Cold sweat was covering him and made him shiver.

 

It took one hour, sixteen minutes and forty three seconds until Spock’s heartbeat had settled down into a normal rhythm, until he could move and stand up. Just in time for duty.

The Captain would soon be waiting for him.

The Captain …

Four times. Four … two … and yet one.

He staggered against the wall as he wanted to enter the shower.

No.

He couldn’t …

He couldn’t … in this condition … He would have to retreat into his laboratory, at least until noon. It would be possible, they were in the middle of nowhere between star systems full of planets without any hint of life, it _had_ to be possible, he couldn’t appear on the bridge in his present state.

Yes, he could pretend to have important work in the laboratory to avoid the captain and the rest of the crew during the next few hours.


	3. #3

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

‘I don’t like the way you look again.’ The statement had lost its spirit and Leonard knew it.

Jim’s standard answer – ‘What, you don’t like how I look? And I put on the red lingerie only for you!’ – sounded half-hearted as well. The game wasn’t a game anymore.

Leonard breathed out. ‘I will continue searching.’

Jim didn’t even try to escape the repeated scanning on the biobed. The rebuilding of the _Enterprise_ was by no means done, but most of its interior was ready to use.

‘I won’t find anything,’ Leonard stated honestly, just as he began the examination.

‘I know, Bones.’ Jim’s expression showed deep cluelessness, which grew even stronger when the full body scan was through with the expected result. ‘Actually –‘ he began.

‘Don’t you dare say that.’

‘But actually it isn’t all that bad.’

‘Except the fact you’re breathing as if there’s a rock on your chest and your complexion could compete with that of the Goblin …’ Leonard waved his hands vaguely in the air. He wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm anymore. Ailments whose causes weren’t determinable and couldn’t be treated with any medication he knew of took a strain on both his eloquence and his humour. Without further words he grabbed a hypospray. A bronchial enhancer still couldn’t hurt. The fact that Jim let himself be injected with the stuff without any struggle made Leonard’s mood sink below zero. ‘For the hundredth time, survey,’ he growled. ‘Headaches, cold sweat, tightness in the chest. Always directly after waking up. That’s all?’

Jim sat up and dangled his legs. ‘Um, uh,’ he mumbled. ‘Well –‘

‘What?’ Leonard’s voice sounded softer and harder than he’d intended, both at the same time. Anxious, because too much had happened. Demanding, because nothing of it could be reversed. He wasn’t amongst those who could be glad about the recently won battle. Even the relief tasted flat. So many dead, the ship in pieces – God, why had he agreed to continue living in space? He sighed. He had many reasons. One of them was sitting with nervously dangling legs in front of him and frowned.

‘I dream weird stuff, sometimes,’ Jim provided scarce information. ‘More often lately.’

‘What stuff?’

Jim lowered his gaze. ‘I’m not sure. There I am – and then again I’m not. I mean, I’m there, but not really there. And I am talking to someone, but can’t hear what I’m saying. Do you understand, Bones?’

‘Not a word,’ Leonard stated dryly. ‘The whole thing again a bit more detailed, if I may ask.’

‘Well, I –‘ Now it was Jim who waved his hands vaguely through the air. He looked incredibly young in this moment, and Leonard understood that there was nothing to be gained here. Not right now. Something ringed in his head, as he saw Jim so clueless. So wordless. Without any feignedly relaxed explanation for what was happening to him.

O yes, there had been a situation like this before. A disturbed Jim, sweaty, breathing labouredly and unsteady on his legs, who had actually tried to sneak away from him after a night of drinking. And who had asked him to lower his voice since his head was almost exploding. Surely there alcohol had been involved, whiskey and absinth, but Jim’s complexion, greenish like the liquor – no, that hadn’t been normal.

So far Leonard hadn’t ruled out that Jim’s current discomfort was in fact psychosomatic, even as his best friend warded off any attempts of bringing up the matter with the most impressive mulishness. Jim had been through much, they all had, and it all had happened under his responsibility.

But this first time when Leonard had seen Jim in this strange condition – when had that been? Even _before_ Krall. Yes, he was absolutely sure. At this time they hadn’t even been close to Yorktown yet. And what had Jim said? What had Jim told him that morning? ‘A silly dream, nothing more’, yes, exactly. With these words he had slipped off into the shower. Afterwards he’d had recovered himself enough for Leonard to abstain from using a hypospray.

How could he have forgotten that? Why hadn’t he fought of it sooner? For example the very moment Jim had come to him the first time, covered in cold sweat? What kind of idiot was he?

‘It’s alright, Jim’, he decided and patted his friend’s shoulder. ‘I just thought of something, but we will talk about it when you’re somewhat brighter.’

‘I have to go anyway,’ Jim answered. ‘God, Bones, I don’t want to,’ he burst out, honest and youthful.

Leonard sighed again. He had seen Jim’s desk last night. It was hard to judge what was the more unpleasant task: writing all the condolences or checking on all the applications for the positions of those that had fell in the battle. ‘I’m a doctor, not a secretary. But maybe I could –‘

A warm gaze out of blue eyes hooked onto his awkwardly spoken words. ‘You have more than enough work of your own,’ Jim said. ‘Spock will look over the applications first and make a qualitative preselection. I’ll manage to do the rest somehow. But thanks. Really, thank you, Bones, this means –‘

‘Yeah, now go so your new uniform will be used in adequate surroundings,’ Leonard scotched Jim’s newest emotional moment. Things like that happened frequently as of lately and Leonard didn’t know how to properly deal with them.

Jim snorted. Oh, it was too easy to get him all agitated. He finally had overcome himself to change his increasingly too tight uniforms into ones of a bigger size. He made an incredible drama out of it that his current self didn’t exactly match his twenty-two-year-old self anymore, though he was – aside from the mysterious ailments he currently suffered from – in peak condition. No wonder considering his daily training and his at times pathological ambition.

‘Don’t be such a conceited wussy, Jim,’ Leonard retorted. ‘Physiognomy can’t be tricked and as long as women regularly don’t even look at me anymore after they caught sight of your glorious figure you should refrain from whining and start being sorry for the one who deserves it most: me.’

‘Bite me,’ Jim stated, smiling. ‘Will we see each other for dinner?’

‘Only if you don’t moan again about what you shouldn’t eat while you steal exactly these things from my plate. We’re no longer at the academy where every single bite is documented, and honestly, your medical results are fantastic.’

‘You’re my doctor, Bones, _you_ should draw me up a nutritional plan.’

‘I am also your friend Jim, and I tell you one thing: concerning this you’re completely nuts.’


	4. #4

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

‘Cocktails? We have a replicator only for _cocktails_? For real?’ Jim eyed the apparatus with a combination of both fascination and confusion. The rest of the menu of the new wardroom had something to show for as well: From pizza to burgers to Vulcan and other extraterrestrial delicacies there was nothing left to wish for. Now if those meals even tasted good, Scotty and Keenser really would have outdone themselves.

‘Was about time for something decent being served up,’ Bones stated while replicating himself a steak. ‘Synthetical food stays synthetical food, but – ah, that does look tolerable.’

‘Anyhow.’ Jim was still staring at the cocktail replicator which in addition to usual mixed drinks also had names on it he’d never heard before. ‘Is that even allowed?’

‘What?’ Bones took a step toward him and looked him in the eyes. ‘Who are you and how the hell did you get a grip on Jim’s body? Let him go, you understand?’

Jim shrugged. ‘Oh, forget it. More or less reliable additional functions shouldn’t be a problem.’ They were only a problem for _him_ by giving him the feeling of even being rewarded for the deaths of people in his command.

‘Well, then let’s try this out.’ Bones unerringly pressed the button with the label _Whiskey Sour_.

‘Lieutenant Commander Doctor Leonard McCoy,’ a mechanical female voice came from the speaker next to the replicator, loud enough or Jim and Bones to jump. ‘Currently on leave. Slàinthe mhath!’

‘Did that thing just say “cheers”?’ With feigned disbelief Bones took his cocktail and smelled it distrustingly.

‘More like “To your health”,’ Jim stated. ‘Fingerprint sensors. Clever, Scotty. Well, if that’s the case, some decent things would have been cool. Pure Whiskey, Brandy, Vodka or a simple beer.’

‘You haven’t even tried, Captain’, another female voice sounded behind them, this time not mechanical at all.

Jim spun around. ‘Uhura? What are you doing here already?’ Currently, there wasn’t anything to do for the xenolinguist aboard the _Enterprise_ , who smiled at them both, wearing unusual casual clothing. A simple shirt, jeans and white sports shoes, as if she intended to climb uneven territory. Yet her make-up and hair almost looked even more perfect than usual.

‘Testing,’ she answered. ‘May I?’ She pointed at the cocktail replicator and, as Bones stepped aside, pressed the button with the tag _Lovely Genius_ two times.

Jim almost didn’t believe his eyes as the apparatus after a ‘Lieutenant Nyota Uhura. Currently on leave’ replicated two impressive identical drinks: on a milky, pink liquid there came a creamy white one and a red one, cream on top, cherries and Orion fruits whose name he couldn’t remember right now.

‘Sláinte mhath!’ Uhura called as she turned around to leave the wardroom.

‘A happy cheers!’ Bones retorted, put down his tablet and carefully tried his drink. ‘Huh. Not all that bad, honestly. Compared to all the other synthetic stuff, of course.’

Jim didn’t answer. So _that_ was it. The pressure in his chest which hadn’t faded off completely today despite the bronchial enhancers increased. Not only had Spock stood him up today and left him alone with all the administrative work. Not only had he not reacted on Jim’s countless attempts on getting through to him via communicator. No, now he and Uhura had set themselves up a nice date night.

Of course Spock had every right to get some rest. Of course he wasn’t actually obliged to help him with going through the application forms. But they’d had an appointment today and Spock had been so elusive the whole week Jim had thought – yeah, what had he thought? Not enough, as it seemed. Was he now counting on Spock’s untiring commitment so much that the latter hadn’t dared to tell him he rather wanted to spend the day with his girlfriend? Or ex-girlfriend? Or once-again-girlfriend? Who was supposed to still make sense of all that? And why were these two on the ship if they wanted to be on their own? As far as Jim knew, Spock hadn’t yet moved into his quarters.

At this moment Uhura’s steps came to a halt. She turned on the spot and came back to the cocktail replicator with a mysterious smile. She seemed to think hard before she chose a non-alcoholic cocktail called _Lucky Banana_ which the apparatus spat out without any name, rank or status. It was a white-yellow miracle with sliced banana and a tiny umbrella on top. Uhura gave Jim and Bones a last, sparkling smile and hurried away with her drinks on a tablet.

‘Well, it’s always hard if your new honey already has a child whose preferences you don’t really know yet,’ let Bones himself be heard, showing something between a broad grin and a wistful look. ‘To be honest, I’ve never seen Keenser drink anything. Of course he does take in fluid. But the idea of him and a glass with an umbrella like that …’

‘Keenser?’ Jim didn’t get it. ‘Why Keenser?’

‘Good Lord, Jim. You could at least pretend to try and feign brain activity,’ Bones stated, and hadn’t he been holding his tablet in his hands, Jim would have bet on him to throw his arms in the air aghast. ‘Please, think for a moment. Who except the both us actually hangs around this ship at this time on their own free will instead of sitting comfortably in a hotel room?’

‘Not Spock,’ Jim murmured and felt silly that same moment. It actually hurt him that his first officer hadn’t yet moved into his quarters while Bones and he himself – well, they preferred this construction site. Because it felt endlessly wrong to be pampered in some fancy hotel, as Bones called it. ‘Uh, you mean – Uhura and Keenser …? That would be quite – hey, why not?’, he called himself to order. Who knew what qualities lay in the small alien engineer? Jim especially knew how bitter it was to frequently being reduced to his physical shape. His face and his body, those who found James T. Kirk attractive saw nothing more. He actually had his reasons to find physical changes unsettling.

‘Good Lord’, Bones groaned. ‘Uhura may have proven an especially weird taste in the past, but no, it’s not Keenser. Haven’t you noticed how she smiled at the writing? _Lovely Genius_? I strongly assume this drink is dedicated to her. If Scotty seriously approaches something, then he really outdoes himself, that hell of a guy.’

‘That – _what_? How do you know all that?’

‘I have eyes in my head, Jim.’

With whom you are stalking Uhura?’

Bones violently choked on something, whatever it was. ‘Come on, my steaks gets cold’, he finally puffed out, his voice raw. ‘And for heaven’s sake, get yourself one too, I won’t share mine with you, Jim.’


	5. #5

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

Jim hadn’t replicated himself an alcoholic drink. That wasn’t good. The powerless movements with whom he sliced his steak were so much less. To spit out all the curses Leonard had on the tip of his tongue would have taken him the whole night.

‘Doesn’t get better, huh?,’ he asked Jim earnestly instead. ‘On the contrary. And don’t lie to me.’

Jim tried to take a deep breath and grabbed his chest. ‘It’s the first time it lingers until evening,’ he answered. ‚The headaches and this – pressure. Well, at least I’m not sweating anymore. That always stops after about two to three hours.‘

So far, Leonard thought darkly. Now that he saw Jim so weakened the subtle rage he’d felt in the morning boiled up inside him again. ‘Have you made at least some progress, you and Spock?’ he inquired, trying to keep the offence off his voice which he had felt since he’d tried to talk to Spock. After everything they’d been through together on Altamid the cold rejection from the latter had hit him harder than he was willing to admit.

He had tried to contact Spock on his communicator, shortly after Jim had left sickbay. Vulcans had special access to mental processes. And they were telepaths, able to mindmeld, even with other species. ‘Spock, I don’t want to disturb you for too long, but this is about Jim,’ that was how Leonard had put it to words. ‘I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but he’s not quite himself at the moment. I can’t determine anything physical, but I had an idea today and I’d like to talk to you about it. And please don’t tell me about confidentiality; you know as well as I do that Jim wouldn’t mind if you -‘

‘Doctor McCoy, should I feel the desire for a personal conversation with you I shall immediately notify you,’ Spock hat interrupted him. He had sounded rushed, and such rudeness was most uncharacteristic for him. After the recent events this reaction had silenced Leonard for a moment. Spock had taken advantage of his speechlessness by ending the connection with one last ‘Excuse me, I am busy’.

‘Spock hasn’t come,’ Jim said quietly. ‘To me. My office. And I wasn’t able to get through to him. Earlier I thought, he and Uhura – but he would have cancelled our appointment if he didn’t have the time. Though I’m a rather slow thinker at the moment, but the thought of Spock not daring to postpone a meeting with me – no, I think that’s nonsense.’

‘Wait a moment.’ Leonard laid down his cutlery. ‘ _Spock_ stood you up? Pointy-ear didn’t appear at an official appointment without cancelling it? Seriously?’ He almost felt relieved. If Spock acted uncharacteristically towards Jim as well – and uncharacteristically didn’t quite catch it! – something wasn’t right. Something that had nothing to do with Leonard personally. He preferred not to think about why that was so important to him.

‘Actually he is free to do so’, Jim promptly changed into defensive mode. Oh no, nobody was allowed to talk badly about his favourite goblin, even if this favourite goblin had once again offended him with his bland attitude. ‘I mean, he isn’t actually obliged to support me with administrative work when I have enough time on my own. Scotty says we’ll be stuck here at least two more months. I could take things more slowly, but you know me, Bones. Putting unpleasant things off makes me nervous.’

‘A matter in which you and the Goblin are remarkably similar. Something’s wrong here’, Leonard decided. He supressed a sigh. ‘Jim, there’s this thing that came to my mind this morning. I had an idea concerning this that I’ll have to cancel for the time being. But at least you should know what I had thought of – namely, asking Spock to have a look at all this on a mental level – and what my provisional plan will be.’


	6. #6

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

The first night had been an utter catastrophe. Jim hadn’t slept a minute in Leonard’s provisional sleep laboratory. Leonard actually had to admit the he too would have had trouble sleeping while being wired to a polysomnographic biofunction monitor.

He could have teared his hair out for not being able to procure a sensory polysomnographic monitor without any official reason. Still, he wanted an individual sleeping profile of Jim than those the currently available biobeds in the new sickbay could provide. Thus he had to make do with the device he had been able to obtain through some contacts within a few hours.

The result was a thoroughly whacked Jim who now had a sore back instead of a headache and wasn’t very grateful for Leonard’s efforts. He had been willing to repeat the experiment the next night though, in his own quarters instead of sickbay: ‘If I keep working the whole day and exercise additionally, I certainly will fall asleep, Bones.’

Indeed Jim was so exhausted the second night that he almost passed out while Leonard was still connecting him to the scanners. ‘By the way, I got through to Spock,’ he murmured with eyelids snapping shut.

Leonard listened up. ‘You did? What did he say?’

‘Nothing. Well, actually he said quite a lot for his standards, but nothing that could have helped me at all. He unexpectedly had a lot of stuff to sort out and couldn’t manage to come to the ship in within the next days – always the same statement with different words. As though he had a fever.’ This realization made Jim snap his eyes open. ‘Bones, what if he’s sick? No longer in control of himself? Spock would never tell me the same thing repeatedly with a clear mind, much less without apologizing for letting me down yesterday. Will you look after him?’

‘I tried that’, Leonard admitted, and in the face of Jim’s growing concern he didn’t even feel uncomfortable in doing so. ‘Today. I was at the hotel to talk to him. But either he wasn’t there or he successfully faked his absence. On the way out I med Chekov. He said he hadn’t seen the Commander in days. At the meals he doesn’t appear ever as it seems and – well, he’s not the most social guy.’

‘What the hell?’, Jim groaned. ‘Oh, I will get hold of him and then I’ll tell him I picked out the applicants only by looking at their faces and deciding who looked sympathetic, and then he will turn dark green and faint and – God, I really, really have to talk to him, Bones. Because of him, but also – because of me.’

Silently, Leonard nodded. He wanted Jim to voice the truth by himself.’

‘We have yet some time’, he continued. ‘And of course I intend to be well again when we depart. But it’s a fact I have to plan for every eventuality. I need to know is he will be there, should I – should I not be able to be. The situation is serious enough to pester him a bit. He should know what’s happening to me and I want to know what’s happening to him. I do have a responsibility for him. And not only as a friend.’

Leonard nodded once more. ‘You know what you’ll have to when he continues refusing to talk to you?’ A rhetorical question, yet he still felt the urge to ask it.

Jim swallowed hardly. He hated it to give orders to Spock or Leonard. ‘Sure’, he murmured, and then his eyes fell shut for good.

This night it was Leonard who didn’t sleep. With a pot of coffee and a pile of medical literature he could easily hold out in Jim’s quarters.

The polysomnographic biofunction monitor was working steadily – and for some time without any result. Not until one o’clock in the morning it showed readings which turned out to be frightening, and Leonard had to fight the urge to wake Jim up from the nightmare he appeared to have.

Rapid increasing of heart rate, brain waves, blood pressure and breathing rate, while the oxygen leven in Jim’s blood and his body temperature were dropping disturbingly fast. Within two minutes there wasn’t a single reading that wasn’t highly alarming. Then Leonard heard his nickname, uttered in obvious pain. ‘Bones’, and then Jim jolted up, gasping.

‘It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright’, Leonard asserted, endlessly glad to finally being able to intervene, increased the lights and turned to Jim.

Only a groan came from the latter. At the same time he pressed both of his hands to his chest. It needed three doses of bronchial enhancer for him to be able to draw air into his lungs again.

While his friend was struggling for air, Leonard became aware of the fact that he couldn’t risk being the only one who knew about Jim’s state of health. Should Spock remain stubborn and continue to evade them they would have to inform superiors. Involve any other telepathically able person on their own – no. Not when this was about Jim’s life.

Leonard sat on the edge of Jim’s bed, squeezed his shoulder and closed his eyes for a moment. He had changed, and instead of slowly diminishing, the traces of the past weeks only grew deeper and more visible.

‘Bones’, Jim murmured.

‘Jim.’ Leonard blinked, smiled at him and handed him a glass of water. ‘Drink. Breath as slowly as you can. The polysomnography isn’t done yet; you’ll have to cuddle with the wires a few more hours.’

‘I think it’s working’, it came from Jim after two swallows of water, barely audible. His forehead was glistening with sweat.

‘What’s working?’

‘I … you’ve been telling me I’m right, haven’t you? Something’s not right. And that I am the one who can reach him despite everything – if anyone. I think I can … even if I’m not good enough …’ Jim’s voice trailed off before he continued hoarsely: ‘I don’t know if he recognizes it’s me calling him. But the borders blur if I, sorry, work my ass off. They do, I can feel it.’

‘Excuse me?’, Leonard asked, fuddled.

‘Huh?’, uttered Jim.

‘Have you just apologized to me because of your language? You witness me shaken and disturbed, my friend, and not mainly because of all that gibberish you just spouted.’

‘What did I say?’ Jim sounded cautious, and then he obviously kept pondering for a while. ‘Shit, Bones, I’m having a blackout.’

‘A blackout? Concerning the last few minutes?’

‘Guess so.’ Jim shut his eyes tight and tried to raise his hands but was hindered by the wires. ‘Fuck, please inject me something. A painkiller which you would give someone who’s got an inoperable arrow in their head, that would be great.’

For a moment Leonard didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Rarely before something had felt so bitter to him as witnessing Jim as a willing patient.

‘Okay’, he sighed as the analgesic did its work. ‘I’ll get by for now, I think. Later you’ll have to help me up enough for me to talk to Spock.’

‘I’ll do my best.’ In view of their current situation Leonard couldn’t promise more. ‘Now you’ll first try to sleep again and I’ll write down all you’ve just said. It may sound like gibble gabble right now, but maybe it’ll come in handy sometime.’


	7. #7

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

The previous night Spock finally had given in to exhaustion, after he had avoided the dreams by simply not sleeping at all for days.

Instead he had meditated – or at least tried to do so. His body functions more and more eluded his control and made it harder for him to concentrate. He was less and less able to suppress his restlessness as well, the more his situation harmed his body and mind.

Thus he had spent his free time in his hotel room, trying to meditate as much as possible, only interrupted by the Captain’s attempts to get through to him, until he finally had felt calm enough to try to sleep. He couldn’t even remember how he had gotten into his bed.

It had not done him any good. Pain had settled into his lungs which flared up with every breath and forced him to breathe shallower and faster than what would have been healthy.

He had slept three hours, given his senses did not deceive him and after waking up he had spent four more hours in bed, unable to move and asking himself how he was supposed to call for help while he could not even reach out for his communicator or breath deep enough to speak out loud.

Never before in his life had he heard of something like this. He knew of significant trauma potentially causing nightmares which led to strong physical reactions, but that usually concerned humans. Not because Vulcans could not experience trauma – he knew very well how wrong that was – but because humans did reflect on their minds much less than Vulcans did. Humans processed their experiences in a different way: more unconscious, more _subconscious_. In dreams.

Spock on the other hand had perfected meditation techniques to avoid dreams very early in his life, and so he was certain by now that these dreamlike states that kept haunting him did in fact not have their source within his subconscious but had to be of a different kind.

But what kind?

He always had to force himself to think about it and the iron ring around his chest grew even tighter whenever he did so.

The only being in the universe whom he could have trusted _and_ asked for advice was no more. At the same time he began sensing that exactly there lay the origin of his problem. A problem which shook about Spock’s mind and with every hour he became more aware that he would not find the answer on his own.

Yet he needed an answer, he couldn’t deny that any longer. His body already punished him for his refusal to seek help.

He could not postpone that much longer. He already was far from able to perform his duty as First Officer. His decision not to leave Starfleet might prove invalid if nothing changed.

He would … have to talk to the Captain.

The thought alone would have made him stagger, had he not still been sitting in bed. It was not unusual for older Vulcans to not tolerate cold very good anymore, but Spock as well, who had not had such problems thus far, had felt cold for days. Still he was sweating.

What had all this to do with the Captain?

Spock had been certain that whatever plagued him only concerned Vulcans. But he began thinking that he was not the only one – the only soul? – involved.

What had it been Doctor McCoy had wanted to speak with him about?

It had to do with the Captain, of course – and hadn’t he looked rather tired the last time they had seen each other? Had it been more than a night of drinking?

And if Captain Kirk had anything to do with this – what did that mean for Spock? How could that be _possible_?

He _had_ to do something. Because he was not the only one affected and not the only one _threatened_. But as he looked at his communicator his throat grew tighter and his heartbeat stumbled, as if these _dreams_ now even wanted to get hold of him when he was not asleep.

 _Not feeling_ was something he had not been able to do for days. Yet especially now he needed this state desperately. He needed it so he could meet the _Captain_.

But how should he tell him he had evaded him for so long when he could not even determine the cause by himself? When he could not even think about it without fighting for breath?

The communicator was lying still on the table next to the bed.

Spock only needed to reach for it …

And then what? What was there the Captain could do? He had no telepathic abilities, no knowledge to help solve Spock’s problem, no matter if it had anything to do with him or not.

Doctor McCoy would examine Spock with everything modern medicine could provide, but he would not find a reason for these strange symptoms. That was one of the few things Spock was certain about.

He had to get up and rid himself of his sweaty clothing, he had to shower and then … do _what_?

He had stopped trying to eat days ago, but when had been the last time he had taken in fluid? His throat was burning and told him that it had been too long, even for a Vulcan.

The communicator began to vibrate.

Spock jerked up. One look at the display told him it was the Captain.

The same moment he thought it impossible to answer the call he knew it might be his best chance.

‘Captain?’ His tense voice startled him. He tried to breathe deeper.

‘Spock?’ the Captain, who could not have missed that asked. ‘Is that you? Are you … you alright?’ Was it the connection or was he having trouble breathing as well?

‘Yes, Captain.’ He had to control himself. He had to …

‘Spock, we have to talk. Can you come aboard the _Enterprise_? I know it’s early, but … can you come now?’

Spock could not identify the Captain’s tone. Was he worried? Why did he sound so exhausted? Spock blinked. The Captain asked him to come aboard. An opportunity. A necessity. But … ‘Captain Kirk, I do not know if …’

‘Commander Spock, I expect you at my office on board the _Enterprise_ in one hour. This is an order’, the Captain interrupted, sounding surprisingly sharp. ‘Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Alright. See you soon, Spock.’

After the Captain had ended the call, Spock kept staring at his communicator for minutes. He could not possibly deny to obey this order, especially considering the situation.

Furthermore he knew he was running out of time without getting help.

 

It was still early when Spock left his hotel room and headed for the docks. He only encountered staff and foreign guests who only looked at him curiously. Had he met any other crew members they instantly would have realized that something was wrong, no matter how hard he tried do appear normal.

He had had to lean on to the cabin wall while showering because of his shaking legs. Afterwards he had forced himself to drink something.

The way seemed endless to him and as he reached the dock and entered the almost ready looking _Enterprise_ , he felt dizzy again.

He clenched his hand into a fist to suppress the trembling before he knocked on the door of the Captain’s office.

The door instantly slid open.

‘Spock!’

Spock wasn’t good at _imagining_ things. At picturing future situations, especially when he feared them as much as he feared this one. Still he was aware that he hadn’t expected _this_.

Even if he’d been in peak condition and perfect control of his reactions, he would have hardly been able to hide his shock facing Captain Kirk’s looks.

The Captain appeared to be almost as haggard as Spock felt.

He made a step into the room. The door slid shut behind him. ‘Captain.’

He stared at him, bit his lip and shook his head. ‘Shit, Spock. What’s _wrong_ with you?’

What was wrong with _Spock_? What was wrong with _Captain Kirk_?

Not knowing what to say was disturbing. ‘You wanted to speak with me, Captain’, he managed and fought the urge to press his hand on his chest, where his lungs seemed to deflate.

‘Spock, this … forget it. You look like _crap_. You … _why didn’t you say anything_?’ Just as Spock wanted to lean against the wall the Captain looked as if he had liked to support himself on the table. Whatever was going on with him, it was nothing small.

‘Spock, please.’ His voice sounded tired and … despairing?

Spock breathed in and out what made him see stars. His impersonal demeanour was failing. ‘Jim, I do not know whether it would help if I tried to explain this to you.’

Despite his obvious exhaustion Jim’s look lit up for a moment. ‘You got them too, don’t you?’

Spock felt his eyes widen and Jim nodded, as if having a thoroughly thought over theory confirmed. ‘I’m right, am I not? You look as worn-out as I do, or something like that. You have trouble breathing as well? And when you fall asleep …’

Spock wanted to back away. ‘Jim … Captain …’

Jim’s mouth twitched with a bitter-looking smile. ‘Captain, yes? Who knows for how much longer. Because of this … I wanted to talk to you. But I believe both of us have a bigger problem than the question of who will command this ship. Well, if things continue the way they are it won’t be _our_ problem two months from now, will it?’

Air. He needed air. Jim … was right. He was right. ‘I am sorry, Jim.’ He was. ‘But … I …’ he could not keep on talking. Not keep on _thinking_. Jim was standing only one metre away. Spock saw the shadows under his eyes, his tense muscles and had to blink to clear his eyes.

‘Spock. Should I call Bones? He can’t help me either, but maybe together we can find out what these dreams mean?’

Streaks of green began to cover his visual field. He shook his head. ‘I … do not consider this a good idea.’ He did not understand himself why he said these words. Why did he still not want to believe that everything what was currently happening to him also concerned Jim?

‘It’s our damn _only_ idea, Spock!’ Jim called and grabbed his shoulder.

Spock had often encountered humans believing physical contact to be something extremely problematic for Vulcans. In truth it was simply not customary to touch each other without need, what was not only due to Vulcan telepathic abilities. Under normal circumstances Spock would not have liked being touched, but it would not have bothered him either.

But even though Jim only touched his clothing, the green in front of Spock’s eyes exploded. Pain ran like an electric shock though his body. He gasped for air, felt as if he could not breathe, _actually_ could not and dashed against the wall with the back of his head while stumbling backwards before sagging to the ground when his legs refused to keep him standing for good.

‘Spock!’ he could hear Jim from far away.

He could not see anything. Only radiating green and white which hurt his eyes and bore into his head.

Someone shook him, called words he barely understood: ‘Spock! Wake up! Bones! _Bones!’_

Something grabbed for him, wanted to pull him away, called for him with despairing impatience. A voice which did not come from the room where he had still been moments before.

But now …

The call. It grew louder, stronger.

Nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the fun part starts. (Also, 12/125 chapters translated so far.)


	8. #8

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

‘But Bones.’

‘But Bones my ass.’

‘But Bones, he’s cold.’

‘And you read that off the tip of his ears?’ Bones snorted and gestured excessively around sickbay. ‘Jim, the temperature in here is reminding me of the Vulcan desert. A few degrees more and I’m gonna collapse, I promise.’

‘You could take off some of your clothes’, Jim proposed. Why did Bones have to be so bone-headed? ‘I know how you look naked, and Spock won’t notice anyway right now.’

‘If he doesn’t notice, he also won’t feel cold.’

‘Bones!’

‘Jim.’ Now Bones sounded dangerously calm. ‘I don’t like to tell you this, but I am doing it: as your friend and your doctor I will sedate you, if you won’t instantly get down from … whatever is up with you right now.’

Indignantly Jim opened his mouth but closed it again a second later. Bones was right. It was warm, more than warm. Spock was still unconscious, on mechanical ventilation and IV hydration. What Bones had done in the past hour had been almost superhuman, and the pressure of the previous days and the nights without sleep had taken their toll on him.

Jim felt his throat grow tight as he came aware of something which was easily forgotten in Bones’ ever reliable presence: He had a responsibility for his Chief Medical Officer as well, and at least as much for his best friend.

‘I … I’m sorry’, he managed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Yes, it really was damn hot in sickbay.

Bones shook his head slightly, a wry smile on his face. ‘I only know the exterior. You on the other hand know what this feels like.’ He gestured towards Spock. ‘My goodness, you seriously carried him here instead of calling me on the communicator or via intercom. Barely able to stand, but you have to be the hero. We need to find out what’s going on with both of you before your brain checks out for good.’

‘I believe Spock knows more than we do’, Jim blurted out. ‘I’m not sure, but he seemed like – well – as if there was something.’

‘Possible. That’s why I wanted to talk to him. Concerning crude phenomena Pointy-Ear tends to surprise.’

Jim didn’t protest against the term _Pointy-Ear_ even though he felt the strange urge to protect Spock from every bad thing in the galaxy, even if it was only a humorous nickname. He had a responsibility for Spock, he should have noticed sooner …

‘Jim.’

‘Huh?’

‘Stop it.’

Jim sighed. Bones knew him all too well. ‘Do you want to take a shower?’, he tried to distract. ‘I mean, take a break? I’m here. I’m …’

‘Actually not in any condition to stand on guard here, but yes, I need a shower. Be right back.’ Bones once again gave him a wry, clueless smile and left sickbay hurriedly.

 

Jim kept watching Spock’s face as if he’d never seen it before. ‘That was close’, Bones had said, and he didn’t declare something like this casually.

Starving, suffocating or burning, those were about the worst causes of death Jim could imagine. How would it be to suffocate while feeling as if the own brain was burning away? His body felt exactly like this after those strange dreams.

How must it have been for Spock, whose body was so much more resilient than his own, when his condition had progressed far enough for him to collapse? So far, he hadn’t regained consciousness.

Jim no longer managed to repress the death of the Ambassador. It was impossible for him not to think about it, now where Spock was lying in front of him, ventilated and on IVs. Jim had no idea how it had happened. How Ambassador Spock had spent his last hours. His last minutes. Whether he had been in pain or afraid. Did Vulcans feel fear of death despite all their logic? If there had ever been one of them to admit this fear, it most certainly had been the Ambassador. Yet maybe he had known way too much about life and death to be afraid of passing away.

‘There’s something you don’t know yet,’ Jim murmured and sat down on the chair beside the biobed. ‘And I’ve got no idea how to explain this to you. It’s … I knew him. Ambassador Spock.’ He swallowed. The pressure in his chest was increasing once more, as if there were something in his lungs soaking up with liquid to stop any oxygen feed. ‘I mean, on a personal level. We’ve been in contact. Not frequently, wouldn’t have been possible, but back then, after Nero, he offered me to contact him anytime. He said he wanted to be a friend for me, should I ever need one. Should I ever need friend like _him_. One who has some distance to everything happening to me, yet not too much of it.’

Jim got up again, one hand in his chest and gave in to his increasing restlessness which demanded him to move his legs until he had fought back the burning of his eyes.

‘As if the opposite ever could have been the case. As if, Spock. I would have liked best to speak to him on a weekly basis. But even though he was so attentive towards me, so reliable, so consistent – even though he was all that, it sometimes agonised him to talk to me. Of course he never said something like this and neither his face nor his voice ever betrayed him, but there was something in his eyes. Something silent, something empty, Spock, I don’t know – something that let me know there was a line he didn’t want to cross. Or could. And over the years I came to understand that more and more. Because I came to know _you_. Or at least, a part of you. And because I, for example, am snarling at my best friend when he doesn’t want to turn this room into a desert simulation I am thinking you could feel cold. And when I imagine you _gone_ , and there to be a someone with your face and your voice and he always wanted something from me, then – I understand Ambassador Spock. I mean, I did, I did understand … shit.’

Jim stopped his movements, leaning with both his hands on the wall and breathed, simply kept breathing for minutes before continuing: ‘I know we usually don’t talk about things like this, and it’s strange. It’s so strange, Spock. The person, without whom the both of us quite possibly would still be on each other’s throats is dead and we haven’t talked about it even once, beside the simple information. It’s – hard to talk to you beside simple information. And that’s hard because I know there’s more to you. Much more. And now you almost go west, alone in your hotel room while I’m trying to get through to you and now of course I’m asking myself whether I became obsessed with something here. Regarding you. Whether our friendship might not be good enough from your point to tell me something like this. And if that’s the case then I don’t know what I’m supposed to do because it feels like I’ve failed. Towards the Ambassador and towards myself. And I want to ask the Ambassador what I should to, if he forgave me if I left you alone just like you seem to want me to do, and I think of the silence and emptiness in his eyes and I don’t even know how he died. I want to ask you about this and yet I know that some monotonous four-word sentence would be as bitter for me as not knowing at all. And now I’m being very unfair, I know, so I won’t mention this the last thing if I try to explain all this to you once. But, I have to tell you, Spock. About me knowing the Ambassador, that I miss him and share your grief which you certainly feel, in your own way. The longer I see you lying here, the more obvious it seems.

He had turned back to Spock again, once again regarding his face, and suddenly he became aware what had been the true case why the thought of leaving the _Enterprise_ and taking the position of vice admiral had felt so appealing for a short time. He had been longing for a break. A break from failing. A break from the growing feeling of having achieved nothing of what the Ambassador had been hoping for him and Spock. Yet the old man had already asked him in the beginning to be patient with his younger self and his eyes had been smiling and for a short moment showed him something profoundly dark.

The door to sickbay slid open and Bones, who due to the shower appeared to have turned into a whole new person entered. How did he do that? Jim didn’t want to imagine how he himself was looking. ‘Coffee time,’ Bones called cheerfully, and coffee was great.

 

They just had emptied the can when the biofunction monitor signalled Spock’s gradual wakening.

Jim jerked up like a nervous school boy, bowed over Spock like an over-protective mother and breathed like an old man. He was being ridiculous and even though he was fully aware of it it couldn’t hold back a relieved ‘Spock!’ which jumped off his lips like a whooping child. He needed sleep. Desperately.

But yes, there it was. Spock was blinking. Spock was waking up. Spock was here, more with every second, which his at first confused, then startled and eventually desperate expression showed this very clearly. Spock definitely remembered their conversation before his collapse and he was yet too weakened to put on a blank expression. This was where Jim needed to get him, had to.

‘A very good morning Mister Spock’, Bones’ grim voice made him spin around. He had planted himself up at the lower end of the biobed and was staring at Spock so furiously like Jim rarely had witnessed him.

‘Bones,’ Jim said quietly.

‘What the hell are you thinking?’ his friend kept ranting unimpressed. ‘You could have – no, no, no, hands off, what are you –‘

With an unexpectedly sudden and skilled grasp Spock had freed himself of the oxygen mask. His haunted gaze wandered from Bones to Jim, remained on him for two seconds and then fastened itself on Bones, whose mouth stood open from outrage. Spock carefully cleared his throat as if testing whether his lungs and vocal cords would allow him to interact. ‘I am sorry, Leonard,’ he eventually managed, almost voiceless. ‘More than I can tell you. You know what I am especially referring to.’

Very, very slowly Bones closed his mouth. He lifted both his arms and let them down again. ‘I need some air’, he grumbled and added: ‘And I’m still going to chew your ass off later.’

‘He didn’t mean that literally, Spock’, Jim said hastily after Bones had left. ‘I promise.’


	9. #9

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

Leonard was standing on the observation deck, watching the workers in the adjoining interlock, racking his brain. ‘You on the other hand know what this feels like.’ That was what he had said to Jim regarding Spock’s physical condition. This had been the truth – and then again not, which he became more aware of with every second.

He didn’t have any doubts about his two patients suffering from the same events. But actually, Spock had almost bit the dust an hour ago, and not only due to oxygen deficiency. All his bodily functions had been failing. Leonard had ruled out poisoning or an allergic reaction.

‘He, I, Bones, he’s got them too’, Jim hat stammered as he had laid down the unconscious Commander on the biobed. ‘Spock’s got them too, I’m sure of it. The dreams.’

According to his own and Jim’s intuition Leonard had refrained from putting Spock into an induced coma. Sleep was dangerous for both of them, that much was clear, and who knew if drug-induced sleep hadn’t the same effect on them? Most likely it was all depending on the source of the dreams, and concerning that they still had no clue. Stabilizing Spock had been hard work, but for now Pointy-Ear was out of the woods.

Jim on the other hand appeared to have mobilized newfound reserves faced with Spock’s collapsing. And now Leonard’s considerations came in; at this point his brain hat begun to break loose. It was a fact: Whatever was happening, Jim was taking it much better than Spock. And the circumstance that Jim had Leonard and thus a doctor with various hyposprays with him didn’t alone explain this oddity.

When Jim’s bronchial system was cramping up, Leonard gave him a bronchial enhancer. If he couldn’t endure the headaches any longer, Leonard administered analgesics. But those medications didn’t have any stabilizing effect on the entire organism. Still Jim, despite his symptoms, had been in good shape compared to Spock. Until yesterday he had done his work. Until yesterday he had been exercising, while Spock already had retracted from everything and everyone a week ago, most likely to hide the fact that he wasn’t anywhere near _functional_.

That didn’t make any sense. Spock’s Half Vulcan organism was way more robust than Jim’s Human organism, and if anyone could call themselves an expert in this matter, it was Leonard. He knew Spock’s body by heart – Lord, this sounded so wrong – and there was no medical explanation for the current developments whatsoever. Spock could go for days without water and about two weeks without sleep. Atmospheres with lower oxygen became later problematic to him than to humans, even though he couldn’t to quite as long without oxygen as full Vulcans. Jim was a vulnerable little worm compared to this guy!

Therefore there had to be something, anything where Jim had an advantage. That gave him the upper hand over Spock in fighting these attacks. Leonard tried not to thing mainly as a medic. What in the world was Jim’s advantage?

Without doubt Jim was one of the most creative people Leonard had ever known, but so far his ingenuity didn’t help him at all concerning the current situation.

Healthier diet? Next item, please. Though Jim could be seen eating salad more often lately due to his personal body shape tragedy, but he would never achieve the same level of vegetables as Pointy-Ear.

Stronger mental capabilities? Unlikely considering Spock’s meditation levels. Jim had an indomitable spirit, sure, but Leonard estimated them to be even on that matter as well. Even more likely Spock was leading here too, because he constantly was training his mind.

Spontaneity and intuition. Those were Jim’s supreme disciplines. This Leonard intended to keep in mind, since Jim’s biggest strengths relied on subconscious information. Maybe they were useful to him concerning these dreams.

Psyche, character building? Difficult to answer. Leonard usually considered himself to be quite tough, but what Jim had told him about his childhood when drunk had made him shiver. Yet still he estimated that Spock wasn’t to be envied for his childhood either. Separate from each other they both had suffered enough traumatic experiences for Leonard to go for a tie on that one too. They both were men who stood up for their values and the lives of others; they both frequently displayed courage and high degrees of responsibility. Yes, he was sure: These two persons were on par with each other.

Well, and he unfortunately couldn’t think of anything else. More frequent sex? he thought with desperate courage, but disregarded the idea instantly. Planetside Jim definitely would have been way out in front, but during the first three years of their five-year mission the Goblin had had the advantage due to his relationship with Uhura. Jim was no Captain who tended to get involved with crew members on a sexual level, and especially at the beginning of their career he had almost been panic-stricken to receive such a reputation. Aside from potential rendezvous with his hand Jim’s sex life aboard the ship seemed dull. A fate which Leonard shared. And now they were on Yorktown, dammit, and instead of finally looking around for a date or two, they had to – oh, he didn’t make progress this way. He didn’t make any progress at all. Sighing, he started back towards sickbay.

 

Leonard found Jim and Spock in unexpectedly familiar pose as the door slid open and he entered. Jim sat on the edge of Spock’s bed, slightly bent over him, and it was hard to tell who was looking more exhausted at the moment. Along with that Jim’s forehead was sweaty and Leonard felt himself starting to sweat the moment he entered as well.

‘Hey.’ Jim looked up and grinned timidly. ‘I, uh, just filled Spock in on how this whole crap began for me. I think he shouldn’t talk too much yet though, should he?’

Leonard suppressed a deep sigh. It was obvious that Spock didn’t _want_ to talk right now and Jim was trying to defend him.

‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind you saying something on the matter’, Leonard remarked and noticed with great satisfaction that the Half Vulcan still seemed incapable of keeping a blank expression. His face revealed confusion and shock and Leonard almost had felt sorry for him, if not … ‘Do you have any idea at all what you’ve done there? Do you have any idea in what position you would have brought Jim and me if you had kicked the bucket alone in your hotel room? Oh, and don’t you start pretending as if you were above such things. Seeing you confronted with your own vulnerability on Altamid really has broadened my horizons. You really would deserve for me to pan you for hours more, but if you don’t fight back it’s no fun. So I only have to say one more thing: Put that damn oxygen mask back on if you don’t have anything to say. Over and out.’

Spock obeyed.

Spock. Obeyed.

‘Oh, Bones,’ Jim said awkwardly.

‘Actually, I got something else, Spock.’ Leonard ignored Jim’s interjection. ‘I don’t want to torture you, please don’t get me wrong here. Of course you should physically feel as good as possible. But I can’t place you and Jim in different rooms since I can’t split myself in two. Thus, the three of us presumably will spend a long time together in this room, and I’m very sorry but – the current temperature is an ordeal for Jim and me. Which means it will be one for you was well; should we keep sweating like that I will have to get you a scent blocker. I’d rather go get you some heatable clothing.’

Spock nodded resignedly.

Spock. Nodded. Resignedly.

‘Oh, Bones’, Jim repeated. He cast an intent look at his favourite Goblin and only as the latter nodded to him as well he conceded: ‘Yeah, okay, I might pass out soon if it stays that hot in here. At least I can’t think very good. And shit, guys, we _have_ to think.’ He swallowed and continued with painful severity: ‘You know me. You know how I am. Sort of. If – when Krall – if it would have helped, if my death could have saved anybody, then –‘

‘Jim, we know that.’ Leonard said cordially. Yes, they both knew that, he and the Goblin.

‘Okay.’ Jim’s voice was shaking. ‘The thing is: If that’s not the case – I mean, if it doesn’t help anyone – then I really don’t want to die a second time. Not yet.’

And something in Leonard’s head just clicked.


	10. #10

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

He had to say something. He had to tell them how he’d been, how it had started and how the situation had escalated much faster than he had feared just a few hours ago.

Leonard was right for being furious and Spock also couldn’t have held it against Jim should he have been more angry than worried.

Spock was well aware that he couldn’t avoid telling both of them about all his thoughts and premature theories. He didn’t have many ideas concerning the source of his dreams and those he had seemed either absurd or frightening whenever he considered them.

Yet thinking was the only thing he could do except listening. The raging pain in his head had quieted down into a dull throbbing for the moment, which was disruptive, but also endurable.

Breathing was easier now as well, thanks to the oxygen mask, and he did in fact not feel any urge to put it down, especially since it provided him with a reason to postpone talking to a later point in time.

At the same time he knew he was running out of time – much faster than Jim, what was disquieting and at the same time potentially revealing. Despite Leonard’s treatment Spock was extremely weakened. He couldn’t have possibly gotten up, even if he had been inclined to try.

Spock knew he had deserved Leonard _chewing his ass off_ – but he would not have needed it. He was well aware it had been a mistake not to talk to Jim and Leonard the instant his condition had turned for the worse one week before.

Eyes closed, he struggled to concentrate. Thoughts kept pressing in on him but whenever he tried to get hold on any of them, they evaded him and he began feeling dizzy even as he was lying down.

Midmorning continued, grew into noon. Leonard changed infusions, examined Spock’s readings, murmured curses and looked at him reproachfully, which led to Jim looking at Leonard reproachfully, though not nearly as convincing as the doctor did.

Spock could not see the monitor over his bed, but he did not need to in order to know that nothing in his body read as normal. It was enough to hear his pulse settling at 306 to 308 beats per minute.

Spock closed his eyes again. No thought remained with him long enough so he could bring himself to put it into words.

What could they possibly do? He would not be able to leave sickbay on his own anytime soon, no matter what Leonard did and there was the risk of Jim being in a similar condition very soon.

Spock removed the oxygen mask. Jim jumped at the sudden movement and sat up, after he had slowly been slipping down in his chair.

‘Spock?’

He kept breathing as calmly as he was could manage, unsure if his voice would obey him. He could _feel_ the oxygen saturation in his blood drop.

‘If you’re not going to say anything within four point three seconds I’ll put that mask back on for you’, Leonard announced.

‘We have to travel to New Vulcan’, Spock exhaled.

Jim’s eyes went wide. ‘But …’

‘Yeah right, I’ll get us a cab,’ Leonard grumbled.

Spock pressed his lips together. ‘I do not know what is happening to us’, he uttered towards Jim, ‘and I am afraid I cannot determine what it is by myself.’

Jim appeared to be thoroughly alarmed. ‘You have … no idea at all?’

Spock put on the mask again and took some deep breaths, to postpone answering as well as out of simple necessity. ‘Indeed I have’, he admitted.

Leonard pulled his chair closer to the bed and sat down. Suddenly his face wasn’t reproachful at all but highly attentive. ‘What do you think?’

Spock remembered receiving the news of Ambassador Spock’s death and the one thing he hadn’t felt back then: surprise. He remembered what Jim had just told him about how it had started for him. At what point in time.

‘It … must have to do with the Ambassador’s death.’ He almost couldn’t understand his own words what wasn’t alone due to the fact he could barely breath.

‘In what way?’ Leonard asked before Jim, who stared at him and drew in a sharp breath. ‘Can you describe further?’

Spock would not have liked to admit it, but he was grateful for Leonard’s sober tone which made the impression they were talking about simple scientific facts. Nothing else could have made it easier for Spock to voice his thoughts. “I am not sure. But it started for both of us at the same time. If I have not calculated wrong, and I am sure of that, it started the night the Ambassador died.’

As Spock put on the mask once more, Jim kept staring at him with a look he could not construe no matter how long he had been living among humans. Jim didn’t turn his eyes away, barely blinking even as Leonard cleared his throat.

‘But you can’t say what’s behind all this, can you?’ he made sure.

Spock shook his head. ‘I have never heard of anything like this. That’s why … I think maybe Vulcan Elders might have answers for us.’

‘But …’ Jim breathed in audibly. ‘If that has anything to do with the death of the Ambassador, then … why doesn’t this only concern you but … me as well?’

‘That’s some sort of katra thing, am I right?’ Leonard looked back and forth between Jim and Spock.

Despite everything Spock managed to raise a brow in slight indignation. ‘I would prefer to phrase it differently, but yes, such is my theory.’

‘What would explain why I can’t find any reason for all this.’ Leonard waved his hand at Spock and the monitors of the biobed.

Spock nodded. ‘Affirmative.’

‘But …’ Jim stopped.

‘What does this have to do with you?’ Leonard sighed. ‘Yeah, I keep asking that myself.’

Spock looked at the doctor. How much of the facts had he combined? What conclusions had he drawn? He sounded as if his thoughts already were continuing on.

He put the oxygen mask back on, bent his arms and tried to sit up. The monitor beeped as his pulse quickened.

‘Hey, have I allowed you to do that?’ Leonard growled. ‘Stop it.’

Spock shook his head and looked at Jim, who reacted immediately.

‘Bones, can’t you perk up the bed a bit? That way we could talk better.’

Leonard shot a glance at him which seemed almost as reproachful as the ones he had been giving Spock, but let the top of the bed go up a bit so Spock could lean on to it in a sitting position.

‘So, and I dare you on having no good reason for fidgeting around.’

Spock nodded, closed his eyes and waited a few minutes before taking the mask off again and looking first at Leonard, then Jim. ‘ _Katra_ is a Vulcan term for something Terrans tend to call _soul_. Except, due to their telepathic abilities, they have developed a conscience of it – and a certain form of control. The katra of a Vulcan, the essence of his memories and personality, can be preserved even beyond their death.’

He could easily see Leonard’s doubts. ‘The existence of a _soul_ has never been proven on earth’, he said thoughtfully.

‘If one bases the soul on memories and personality of a person, then one might interpret this in a way that every living being has a soul, regardless of whether it knows or not. Unfortunately, I am no Vulcan spiritual leader and do not know enough regarding this matter. If I were, I would not say New Vulcan may be our only chance to receive help.’ Spock paused himself. He was getting lost in explanations he did not understand himself to avoid what he actually had to say.

‘How exactly does that help us?’ Leonard demanded expectably.

Spock looked at the Captain. ‘When I am asleep … it seems as if my conscience, my _katra_ is being pulled away or … called by something. The separation of body and katra generally only happens upon the death of a Vulcan. I did not know before how a living body would react to complete separation.’

‘I got a theory on that’, Leonard murmured grimly.

‘If what I believe is true, it is not only about that’, Spock continued, now with more haste. ‘We are living in a timeline which exists separate from the Ambassador’s who had been the only person living in ours. Essentially, he and I are the same person from different timelines. Maybe … this means our katras are linked. Which would mean his death would affect me as well.’ It was the first theory that had seemed plausible to him.

Jim made a choking sound. ‘No.’ He grabbed on to his chest and Leonard got up without a word, grabbed a hypospray and injected it – presumably a bronchial enhancer, because only a short time later Jim began to breathe more freely and stared at Spock with an expression Spock now easily could decipher as horrified.

‘That’s a damn pessimistic theory’, Leonard voiced what Spock and most likely Jim as well were thinking. ‘But it has a huge flaw.’

‘Affirmative’, Spock confirmed silently. ‘Because if that was the case all Vulcans or … all beings with consciousness-based thought would be affected, or only me since I am the only person whose counterpart from the original timeline has been living here when he died.’

‘But the same thing is happening to me’, Jim whispered. ‘How does that work?’

‘But your dreams aren’t the same, are they?’ Leonard assured himself. ‘You’re talking to someone you don’t know, Jim, and Spock, you simply feel your katra being affected?’

Spock nodded. ‘In simplified terms, yes.’ He was struggling to continue speaking. ‘Captain, what is happening to you …’

He could see confusion and … hurt in the Captain’s eyes as he addressed him formally, but this created a distance he needed to put his next thoughts into words. ‘The Ambassador and your counterpart have been close in the original timeline. It might be possible … we can find the reason for your involvement here. A connection between you and Captain Jim Kirk from the world of the Ambassador.’

There, it was out, and Spock’s only hope now was that neither the Captain nor the doctor knew enough about Vulcans to understand what he was referring to. He breathed through with closed eyes, trying to fight the pressure in his chest and the droning in his head.

‘Idiotic Goblin’, he heard the doctor scold and then felt how he put the oxygen mask over his mouth again and administered several hyposprays to him.

‘Bones! He’s in bad shape!’

‘Thanks for the clue, _Doctor_ Kirk.’

Spock forced his eyes open as he slowly regained control over his breathing. Both of them were bending over him, Jim with anxiously widened eyes. ‘Spock? Can you hear me?’

He managed a nod.

‘You are on pause now’, the doctor announced. ‘What you just said … it makes sense, and I’ve been thinking something similar. Let me think a bit more.’

Spock felt Jim’s hand on the bed, close to his arm. ‘Bones … if we have to go to New Vulcan to help him …’

‘And you.’

‘Yeaaah. But … we have to hurry. We need cabins on a passenger ship, as soon as possible. We can’t wait for the _Enterprise_. He … Spock mustn’t fall asleep again, that only makes things worse.’

Leonard placed a hand on Jim’s shoulder and forced him to turn towards him. ‘Jim, I know that. I can’t let you sleep as well with a clear conscience. That’s why I said we will have a very cuddly living community. None of you two is going to sleep alone anywhere unless we have a solution.’

Spock carefully raised a hand and took the mask aside. ‘Leonard.’

He turned towards him. ‘Ey, what did I say?’

‘I can go on without sleep a little longer if you’ll help me. But if we are to arrive anywhere in time we will need further help.’

‘We should let the crew in on this?’

Spock closed his eyes again. ‘We have to. You can’t do all this by yourself.’


	11. #11

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

Jim had told them everything. From his first dream at the Ambassador’s time of death to Bones’ assumption the reason for Jim’s better physical condition could be the fact he had died once before. That they were dealing with some otherworldly force and that they didn’t know anything for sure.

Hikaru Sulu and his husband Ben were silent. For minutes they remained silent. Jim couldn’t blame them for that.

He felt dizzy from speaking so much, his throat felt dry and he drank from the coffee which Ben had made him. This was a tea household.

Spock would have felt at ease in this ample flat, elegant and with furniture in plain colours. Well, the many child paintings which hung at the walls might have irritated him a bit, but Jim thought them to be a nice contrast to the puristic style of the rest of the interior. It was incredible how much effort Ben had put into this flat even though he and Demora usually lived on earth. They had moved to Yorktown for the time of Hikaru’s stay here and now that stay had been extended massively due to the destruction of the _Enterprise_ , Ben had taken his complete annual leave.

‘I want to stress once more that I’m not here as your Captain, Hikaru’, Jim said eventually. ‘I’m here as a friend asking for your help. Both of yours. If you’ll accompany us you’ll so much save our asses. But if you refuse it’s understandable and your right. We wouldn’t be angry and this wouldn’t have any prefessional consequences at all. This is no official matter. And it’s not supposed to become one.’

No, Starfleet shouldn’t hear about this matter at all. At least not at the moment. Commodore Paris had no connection to any spiritual processes, in general or concerning Vulcans, and if things turned bad she would order for Spock and him to be transferred to a hospital instead of supporting their plans to travel to New Vulcan.

Jim could see his helmsman still being shaken by the fear of losing his family during the attack on Yorktown. Had it be about him alone, Hikaru wouldn’t have hesitated a moment, Jim was sure of that. But this wasn’t mainly about him, and that was the reason why Jim had wanted to visit him at home. To order Hikaru on board the _Enterprise_ , which would have demonstrated their difference in power had been no option, even Bones had had to admit that. And because he couldn’t leave Spock unattended he had injected Jim an extra dosis of bronchial enhancer, equipped him with to more hyposprays and let him go.

‘The both of us would be something like an escort?’ Ben made sure because Hikaru still didn’t seem to find words.

‘Exactly!’ Jim answered a tad bit too enthusiastically. He was so glad one of them finally said something. ‘I mean, yes, that’s correct. We barely know each other, Ben, I’m aware of that. But I know through Hikaru that you’re a pharmacist and that makes you the person I’m mostly here for.’

‘Because you need someone who can care for Commander Spock in turns with Doctor McCoy and act accordingly if medication is needed.’ Ben nodded. ‘Yes, that makes sense to me. And don’t get me wrong, Jim – I’m proud you trust Hikaru and me so much to turn to us in this situation.’ The sturdy man with the soft voice grinned slightly. ‘He seems to have told only good things about me, I’m surprised.’

Jim returned the grin and, to loosen up the mood further, he said: ‘Oh, most of all he likes to tell strange stories of your subject groups. The study where ten participants suddenly had violet hair on their tongues is some sort of party hit with the crew.’

Hikaru ducked his head a bit and seemed to wince next to Ben on the couch.

‘Hikaru, these are internals’, Ben growled, but the loving look on his face showed he wasn’t really serious.

‘Of which you have told _me_ as well’, the helmsman fired back. ‘And I on the other talk to you about internals too, so –‘ he balked, stared at Jim and then groaned in agony.

‘Everything’s alright’, Jim said hastily. ‘I was the one who started that. No one has heard or said anything on that matter, okay?’

Strangely touched he noted that both Sulus nodded with honest gratitude.

He took in a deep breath. ‘I really have to keep myself from begging you to come with us’, he tuned serious again. ‘So much is on the line. For Spock –‘ his voice faltered. What if they said no? What then? There was no plan B. All the other medical staff of the _Enterprise_ was no option in this delicate situation.

‘Have I gotten this right, Jim’, Hikaru now turned to him. ‘We would travel with you on a passenger ship, could take Demora with us and when the ship reaches New Vulcan, she and Ben could stay on board and travel back to Yorktown?’

‘Just like you’, Jim confirmed. ‘We need Ben on the voyage because Bones can’t do this all by himself. And good friends as company are very welcome to us. But when we arrive, all of you stay on board and travel back home.’

‘Jim, with all due respect, I will –‘

‘No’, Jim interrupted his helmsman and a wave of affection went through him because Hikaru even now called him by his first name. This was a private meeting, they were friends and official rank didn’t matter here. Suddenly it was unexpectedly painful that Spock – no, this didn’t belong here. ‘I ask you as a friend to accompany us. I believe I’ll sink to my knees to thank you should you say yes and if you’d like I’ll sing something for you. But when we have arrived on New Vulcan and you make any move to send your family back without you, I will order you as a captain to stay on the ship. Everything else is out of the question. After – _everything_.’

Hikaru seemed to be about to disagree once again, but then he seemed to feel Ben’s look, which was concerned and loving and turned to his husband. ‘Alright’, he said, voice rough.

Jim’s heart was pounding. ‘Then …?’

Hikaru nodded. ‘You can count on us, Jim.’

‘Singing is not necessary, though’, Ben added. ‘Hikaru showed me recordings of your little parties on the observation deck. Your qualities lie elsewhere, believe me.’

Jim laughed, loud and clear. ‘You could be right on that, Ben. Maybe _that’s_ the main reason why Spock avoids these gatherings. I should take to him about this and promise him never to sing again.’ If he survives this, his thoughts brought him back down and he felt the smile on his fade away. No, he mustn’t think like that. Spock _would_ survive this. He _had_ to. They had clues. They had help. They would …

In this very moment the door slid open and Demora came in, full of colourful paint spots. ‘We’re –‘ she started with her light voice before noticing Jim who was sitting in an elegant blue armchair. Hastily she hid behind the legs of her companion, what made Hikaru und Ben laugh softly.

‘It wasn’t my fault, Hikaru’, Pavel Chekov’s voice sounded, remorseful which made his Russian accent turn out stronger. ‘There were these street artists, and – oh! Hello, Jim!’

A smile tucked on the corners of Jim’s mouth and at the same time the young navigator’s word’s bit him someplace he didn’t want to turn to right now, not again. Yet still: even Pavel, with twenty-one years still the baby of the crew, called him Jim without hesitation when meeting outside of duty.

‘Everything is fine’, Pavel turned to shy Demora who barely dared to look out from behind his legs. ‘That’s only Jim, he won’t hurt you. He looks a bit under the weather, huh? Maybe Commander Spock said something very exhausting to him.’

Hikaru harrumphed audibly, and Pavel turned a dark red. ‘Oh, Jim, Captain, I didn’t want to –‘

‘Everything is fine’, Jim repeated Pavel’s words. ‘But I’m really am here because of Spock.’ That same moment he became aware that he was looking in the eyes of another loyal companion on their journey.


	12. #12

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

The _Variance_ jerked slightly as she emerged from the dock. The twenty-five year old passenger ship was not what one would call _modern_ , but Spock was in no shape to be bothered by his surroundings. Most likely he wouldn’t see much more of their transportation than the cabin in which Leonard had placed him anyway.

He hadn’t witnessed much of how Leonard and Jim had organized their places on the _Variance_ within less than two days. Just as little how Leonard had managed to be allowed to bring his medication and medical equipment on board which he believed he might need. Furthermore they had been allowed to come aboard hours before the official boarding started.

Two days had passed since Spock had collapsed – he hadn’t slept a minute so his body had recovered a bit. He still couldn’t stand up and Spock didn’t believe this would change before they found a solution for his problem. At the very least he could manage without additional oxygen and had been able to sit in a wheelchair to come aboard instead of having to be transported on a stretcher.

‘We are now leaving Yorktown docking. We will assume warp speed soon and reach New Vulcan expectedly within fifteen standard days. We wish you a pleasant journey’, the speakers above the cabin door sounded and Spock startled. However much he had recovered, it grew ever harder for him to fight his weakness and stay awake. Often he seemed to perceive his surrounding through mist and sometimes his hearing seemed unnaturally keen which turned loud sounds into an ordeal.

He turned his head and watched Jim throwing his clothing into a cupboard. They were in a three-bed cabin where Jim and Spock would stay as well as in turns Leonard or Sulu’s husband.

The Sulu family had another three-bed cabin for themselves while Leonard and Chekov as well as Nyota and Scott shared a two-bed cabin. After Nyota had heard of Spock’s condition, she had expressed the desire to come with them and Scott had transferred the supervision of the construction work on the _Enterprise_ to Keenser to accompany her. Spock did not know how close these two were and he lacked the energy to think about it. He only knew how relieved he was about Leonard’s decision that, except of himself, Sulu’s husband and Jim no one was to visit – and that the situation seemed to appear quite critical if Montgomery Scott left the unfinished ship alone.

Spock blinked as Jim’s silhouette seemed to blur before his eyes. He must not fall asleep. It was uncertain whether his body would survive another of these … incidents. Not without medical help, and Leonard had made it quite clear that he was not inclined to try it out. At the same time Spock knew perfectly well that he barely had any chance to persevere for two more weeks without occasionally dozing off.

‘Spock? Spock!’

He ripped his eyes open. Jim was bent over him and behind him Leonard got up from his chair at the tiny table. ‘Spock, I thought we were on the same page here. You don’t fall asleep and I leave you in peace as much as possible.’

‘I am afraid I will not be able to do that much longer’, Spock admitted. He knew that, just a few days ago, he would have said he was fine, but now he could not afford to euphemise his condition anymore, especially in front of Leonard. The doctor had to know that he wouldn’t be able to stay awake much longer on his own.

Leonard sighed. ‘Actually I had hoped to wait a few days with this, but Ben and I agreed that it most certainly won’t work without.’ He opened the drawer of the rolling table next to Spock’s bed.

‘What is that?’, Spock asked as he saw the hypospray in Leonard’s hand.

‘Stimulants’, Leonard revealed and reached into the drawer again. ‘I would force you to drink litres of coffee, were I not sure we need more than that.’

Spock kept listening to the portable medical monitoring devices which had to substitute for the biobeds in sickbay for now. They bothered him with sensors on his skin but were at least wireless. His pulse was still too high. ‘Does medication such as this not quicken breathing and heartrate?’

‘It does’, Leonard responded and administered the hypospray at the same time. ‘That’s why you’ll get even more soon.’ He reached for two more hyposprays. ‘These are supposed to counteract speeding up your pulse and prevent you from getting an even worse headache from the medication.’

Spock nodded. Within the next minutes it became easier for him to keep his eyes open and he saw Leonard better, who had pulled his chair over to the bed and watched him closely. The bed was not adjustable in height, so Spock had several cushions in his back so he could sit upright.

Jim was standing behind Leonard. ‘Spock? It’s helping a bit, isn’t it?’

‘It is.’ He directed his gaze towards Leonard. ‘A good idea.’

Leonard snored. ‘Of course. Did you think I am making random guesses?’

‘Temporarily I am not able to avoid assuming that you do not have much else you can do’, Spock submitted.

Leonard sighed. ‘Well, the database doesn’t give me much on the composition on an antidote.’

Spock looked at Jim again, whose mouth twitched. He was looking better than two days ago when Spock had come into his office – tired and worn out, yes, but stronger and more upright. At the same time the worry for Spock was easily noted on him – a logical reaction as Spock thought, but also one that unsettled him and kept him from putting into words what he felt.

He had behaved improperly towards Jim and Leonard and now, as he had endangered his life through his own miscalculation, they were at his side with everything they had to offer. Yet still Spock couldn’t bring himself to thank them for their efforts. Now as he had lost his abilities to control his emotions almost completely, he didn’t know how to deal with said emotions.

It was not only the fear which disturbed him. He could not deny it any longer. Contrary to his mission on Nibiru three years earlier and being wounded on Altamid whatever was happening to him now thoroughly defied his control and he did not even begin to understand _what_ was threatening him. That was as confusing as it was frightening, and the fact that he was feeling that way was unsettling him even more – and above all lingered the fact that he could not perceive Leonard’s reliable presence and Jim’s attention as something discomforting. It did not make it easier for him to understand his emotions.


	13. 13

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

‘When can I see him, Jim?’

Nyota Uhura had placed herself in the spacious common room in front of Jim who – still in training clothes – was sitting on one of the benches between Hikaru and Pavel. He took the towel out of his neck and wiped his sweaty forehead. ‘That’s Bones’ decision’, he answered honestly. So, the two of them had come down to their first names when in private, and it was good.

‘Doctor McCoy is asleep’, she snapped. No first name for Bones? Because he decided such malicious things as shielding Spock from strenuous interactions?

‘That’s his right and his responsibility if he is to remain fit’, Jim countered. ‘Listen, it’s been clear from the beginning that Spock needs rest.’

‘But all of you just might be aware of the fact that the presence of close ones can be helpful for sick people’, she retorted. ‘I’m not just someone, am I, Jim? Spock and I have been together for more than four years. I don’t feel indifferent about him, even as I’m now with Monty … I want to see him, alright? Only for a moment.’

_Monty?_

Pavel’s body at Jim’s left began to shake slightly. A short glance towards the young Russian showed he had his expression under control and was just inwardly exploding from laughter. Yet.

‘I’m off taking a shower’, Hikaru knew how to prevent worse, got up and looked at Pavel expectantly. He nodded, uttered a ‘Me too’ and both of them hurried away. Demora had quickly found friends her own age and spent the forenoon hours at the playing area.

Scotty acted unimpressed from the goings on around him as he was busy getting all worked up over something else: he was standing within hearing range at one of the intercoms which passengers were allowed to use, having Keenser on the screen and scolding him as if his life depended on it.

Poor guy, Jim thought, not for the first time. But this tone had belonged to Scotty and Keenser ever since he’d first met them on Delta Vega, and despite all rumbling Montgomery Scott could not have shown his boundless esteem more clearly than by delegating the construction work on the _Enterprise_ to Keenser. Once again Jim thought about how mere looks mostly didn’t show anything essential about a person, and again it was about Keenser. Suddenly he had the wish to one day get to know his extra-terrestrial engineer better. He didn’t even know what his homeplanet was called.

‘Jim!’ Nyota snarled at him as he didn’t respond.

‘Uh, okay’, he stammered. Heavens, what wouldn’t he have done to be able to release a tirade as Captain. But he didn’t want to jeopardize the familiarity between them. The heart of his crew had accompanied Jim, Spock and Bones out of their own free will. To be with them, as friends. So he had to deal with Nyota on an amicable level

‘Five minutes, Jim. Five minutes, okay?’ Her face seemed desperate, tears glistering in her eyes.

Jim imagined how _he_ would have felt like if he hadn’t been allowed to see Spock. If he couldn’t have convinced with his own eyes that Spock was still there. And who was he? The guy whom Spock still frequently kept calling _Captain_. But standing here was the woman with whom Spock had shared four earth years of his life. He definitely would never call her _Lieutenant_ off-duty.

‘Five minutes’, he repeated tinny.

Bones was going to kill him.

 

‘I’m bringing a visitor’, Jim said as the door to their three-bed cabin slid open.

With a questioning look Ben got up from his chair which he had pulled closely to Spock’s bed. Spock himself was blinking at them languorously.

‘This is Nyota Uhura, you already know each other a bit’, Jim turned to Ben to explain. ‘Until recently, she and Spock have been … she’s a friend.’

Ben nodded, Hikaru had most certainly filled him in. ‘But not for too long, please’, he said. ‘I don’t want to provoke being sliced into bits by Leonard.’

Jim suppressed a grin. The man understood.

‘Don’t worry, I really only want to look after Spock shortly’, Nyota said softly. ‘Five minutes are agreed upon with the Captain. Jim, would you please …?’

Bewildered, Jim stared at her. She threw him out of his own cabin? To talk to her ex-boyfriend who shouldn’t have visitors in the first place? He wanted to speak up, but then took a deep breath and answered resignedly: ‘I have to take a shower anyway.’ He took one more look at Spock who gave him an exhausted nod, and then entered the tiny bathroom.

During his lightning-fast shower he tried hard to not be angry at Nyota. He had absolutely no reason to be. She was worried. It was her right to be concerned about her ex-partner and friend, and maybe she was right and it would to Spock good to spend a few minutes in her familiar presence. No one could have ever gotten closer to him, whatever the secret of this outwardly so dispassionately seeming relationship had been. Nyota had loved Spock, there was no question about that. But Spock? What had that been to him? Doesn’t matter, Jim called himself to order. This is no concern of mine.

With fresh clothing and wet hair he returned to the cabin.

Nyota was sitting on the edge of Spock’s bed, talking to him in a low voice. He on the other hand seemed to have trouble focusing her face.

‘I’m sorry, but the five minutes are over’, said Ben, who was standing at the lower end of the bed, kindly.

‘Alright, alright’, Nyota sighed. She reached for Spock’s hands, squeezing them. ‘We’re thinking about you. All of us. Please don’t ever forget that.’

All of a sudden Spock’s weary face came to life. He opened his eyes widely, almost horrified. Now what was that? Nyota’s words had been very kind, hadn’t they? She certainly knew how to reach Spock.

Yet _her_ face as well grimaced slightly in horror, and she let go of Spock’s hands as if she had burned herself. ‘Oh, oh my God, Spock’, she stuttered in a high-pitched voice. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never would have thought this being so clearly to – oh God, I should have known better, I’m so sorry.’ With that, she bent forward, slightly kissing Spock on the cheek and scurried away without saying goodbye to Jim and Ben.

‘Now what was that supposed to be?’ Jim asked perplexed and took over Nyota’s place on the edge of the bed.

Spock’s face turned a slightly darker shade of green. All his attention was on the blanket.

‘Spock?’ Jim pressed on, took Spock’s PADD from the rolling table and handed it over to his friend. No speaking for today. It was their third day on the voyage to New Vulcan and last night, despite all dope, Spock had drifted off for a moment. After his body had recovered minimally before, this short time of sleeping had brought him again to the limit which Bones had described as ‘Fucking shit, goddammit, Spock!’. No taking off the oxygen mask until Bones gave the all-clear.

Spock seemed more than embarrassed and kept hesitating.

‘Come one, Spock’, Jim pleaded. ‘Please, I’m curious. We’re friends, okay?’

Resigned, Spock gave a slight nod and began typing something into the PADD. He was done surprisingly fast and what he then showed Jim was a word. A single word in capital letters. PICTURE. Next to it was a graphic which showed an exploding bomb.

Picture. Spock’s and Nyota’s hands. Contact telepath, Spock was a contact telepath. And the bomb …

‘No!’ Jim blurted out. He couldn’t prevent tilting forward, snorting with laughter. ‘No! Spock! This – a picture in your head, yes? From Nyota and _Monty_?’ With an effort he straightened himself and looked at Spock’s piqued face. ‘Fuck, I’m sorry. Uh, Spock, no man should ever have to see his ex having sex with her new guy. Especially not when – when –‘ no, no, he was chuckling again, ‘if he’s such a _blast_ in bed. Oh no. No. How am I supposed to look Scotty in the eye ever again?’

Spock’s gloomy face changed. Became softer, more vivid, in strange way. And then, there! For a split second the corners of his mouth twitched upwards, not visible for an inattentive viewer, but Jim had seen it clearly.

‘That’s the spirit’, he said, suddenly endlessly cheerful. ‘The more overblown their sex life is, the better Nyota will cope with Bones getting all worked up later and forbidding any visits for good. And he will do that, you can count on it.’

Spock’s reaction came instantly as a nod which appeared to be anything else than regretful. Most likely he simply didn’t need any more pictures of Nyota and Scotty. Then he turned his look at Ben, who was still standing at the far side of the bed, grinning widely, while Spock seemed markedly embarrassed.

‘Uhm, Ben’, Jim stepped in verbally for him, ‘at the moment you are something like Spock’s doctor, in a way. Do you think the last minute fall under medical confidentiality?’

‘Sure’, Ben answered. ‘Those are definitely _internals_.’

‘I’m serious, Ben’, Jim answered. ‘Please don’t even tell Hikaru. For Spock, things like these are – different.’

Ben looked slightly surprised, he seemed to have thought Jim’s plea to be a joke until now. ‘No problem’, he said to Spock.

He nodded thankfully. After being yanked out of his exhaustion in the last minutes, it seemed to settle down again on him like a heavy curtain. Jim searched for his gaze and as he found it, it met him with an unfathomable intensity which made Jim shiver. He felt strange, strange and good. He as well hadn’t been really sleeping for a long time, only up to an hour at a time, and these short periods of sleep didn’t have any bad effects on him so far.

‘Let’s view some profoundly silly clips’, he decided and took the PADD out of Spock’s hands. ‘You will be so annoyed by these your brain won’t be _able_ to shut down in the next hours.’

Indeed, Spock’s look spoke volumes as soon as Jim had started the first videoclip. It was titled _Hovercraft Mishap_ and showed an outdated air cushion vehicle which inelegantly ran out of air over a river which let his juvenile crew fall into the water. Good, but not all that funny; he had to find something that was more entertaining for him and annoyed Spock even more, so he couldn’t get sleepy.

Quickly he found something: The next clip he clicked on was called _The 100 most stupid surfing mishaps of all time_ , and Heavens, Spock’s face! It was so great to see emotions on him!

‘I’m sorry, of course you can’t just leave it at that’, Jim said and imitated Spock’s usual lecturing tone: ‘This title is illogical, Jim, as _of all time_ implies there won’t be times in which surfing accidents occur, which is not the case. In addition it is not likely the producers of this clip knew all surfing accidents which ever happened until now, what makes it impossible to determine if this collection truly contains the most stupid of all occurred accidents. In addition, the term _stupid_ … What?’ He grinned because Spock’s look showed a certain indignation. ‘Not good? Come on, that was great. Hadn’t I joined Starfleet I could have built a career in the entertainment industry.’


	14. #14

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

‘Slowly, that’s enough.’ Leonard looked at the monitor and back at Spock. ‘Do you feel dizzy?’

Spock closed his eyes, opened them up again and looked at the doctor before shaking his head.

After a long and searching look Leonard pursed his lips. ‘Alright. Then let’s try this.’ He bent forward, took Spock’s arm and helped him to sit up straight and lean on the wall which was padded out with cushions.

Jim instantly brought more cushions which he put around Spock until he not only couldn’t collapse but most likely couldn’t have freed himself on his own. ‘Alright?’

Sitting up for the first time in days, Spock blinked and tried to focus his gaze on Jim.

‘Feeling dizzy now?’ Leonard asked and sounded slightly amused. ‘If it gets worse signal it to me so we can turn down a few cushions, and the mask stays on ab bit more, am I clear?’

Spock nodded and hoped his displeasure wasn’t showing all too clearly on his face. Thirty-six hours since he had last fallen asleep and he was absolutely tired of the breathing mask. But even though he once again had recovered a bit, he preferred not to start a discussion with Leonard.

Leonard kept checking the IV lines and seemed to be fairly pleased as Spock’s vital signs remained stable in the following minutes.

Spock himself just looked around the room. It was clean and scarcely furnitured. The cabin didn’t have a window – they had had to take what they could get and this cabin was fairly close to the medbay of the ship, which Leonard had scornfully called a ‘training ground for hobbyist butchers’. Still he had considered it safer to have it close by.

Jim’s bed was full of used clothes. Despite this nothing was laying around anywhere; Leonard meticulously looked for everything to be clean so he wasn’t in danger of stumbling over shoes lying on the floor.

Spock tried to ignore Jim who was sitting next to him on the bed and watched him. Between them lay the PADD which served them for communication and Jim used to keep Spock awake with strange videoclips; it was working, but Spock would have much preferred something else to pass the time. In addition, the device reminded him of the previous day which he would have _really_ liked to simply forget.

‘Spock? How are you? Do you want to keep sitting up?’ Jim asked.

He nodded and looked at Leonard expectantly.

‘Alright. But you will owe me one’, he grumbled before he bent over the bed and carefully, to prevent skin contact, took away the breathing mask.

Just as Jim had predicted, he hadn’t been thrilled by Nyota’s visit one bit. Whether he actually had threatened to slice anyone into pieces what had been Ben Sulus’s fear, Spock didn’t know, but for the rest of the voyage no one except Jim, Leonard and Ben Sulu were allowed to enter the cabin. Spock felt more relieved about these circumstances than he considered appropriate, but after Nyota’s visit he didn’t feel fit for any further encounters.

He took a careful breath. The air in the cabin seemed too thin compared to the oxygen from the mask. He didn’t feel as if he was suffocating though.

Leonard seemed to arrive at the same conclusions. ‘There we go.’ He gave Spock a crooked grin. ‘How do you feel?’

Spock opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t manage anything more than a rasping sound. His throat felt dry after he had received all liquids and nutrients he needed intravenously for days.

Leonard didn’t seem surprised. ‘Huh. Now it’s your turn. What do you think about drinking something?’

Jim got up. ‘Be right back’, he mumbled and rushed out of the room in the area which they shared with several other passengers.

Confused, Spock looked from the door to Leonard.

He shrugged. ‘No idea what that’s about. But I’m gonna bring you a glass of water now, alright?’ Without waiting for an answer he filled up a glass and put it on the rolling table.

Spock didn’t make a move to ask Leonard for the glass until Jim returned – and with him came an unexpected, familiar smell.

‘Well, if you like that more than water’, he said and pointed toward the steaming cup in his hand. ‘I got that back in Yorktown as I thought you might like it sometime.’

Tea. Vulcan Omuk tea. Considering the smell a top-quality sort. Worth a fortune.

Jim smiled carefully as he noticed Spock’s look. ‘Do you want to take a sip? It’s not that hot.’

Spock stretched out both his hands and nodded.

‘Peh, a cup of tea certainly’s more to your taste than my boring water, isn’t it?’, Leonard snorted, yet sounded distinctly pleased. Because Spock intended to drink the tea voluntarily? The cussing and the reproachful looks of the doctor had lost some of their intensity since they had boarded the ship. Spock’s cooperation in every aspect seemed to pacify him.

Spock had to hold the cup in both hands to be able to lift it up to his mouth. He took a few sips before he gave it back to Jim as his arms were trembling. ‘Good’, he whispered with closed eyes. ‘I thank you.’

‘Do you want to drink the whole cup? It’s not that much and if you want more later on, I can make more.’

When Spock finally managed to empty the cup the tea was almost completely cold, but he finally felt able to speak again.

Leonard, who had watched silently, glanced at the monitors. ‘Jim, you stay here and call me if something peeps or Spock’s makes a face. I’m out front for a while’, he said and left the room. He let the door half open and Spock could see him sitting down in a chair with his PADD, face in the direction of the door.

‘And now? Surfing clips?’ Jim asked and grinned as Spock’s brows flew up. He had been in an excessively good mood since the day before, as if the thought of … _the picture_ was still amusing him.

To keep Spock from falling asleep he used everything he had, what yesterday had included a video compilation of surfing accidents which Jim had found much more amusing than Spock.

‘I beg your pardon, Jim, your imitation of myself was not at all on point, even though your argumentation was not without a certain logic.’

Jim, who already held the PADD in his hands, snorted- ‘Oh please, I at least sounded like you.’

‘At least? And what would be an augmentation of _at least_? That does not make sense.’

‘Spock. I am right. I have imitated you splendidly.’

Spock took a slow breath through his nose and turned to Jim. ‘No.’

‘Peh, okay, then we watch another clip.’

Spock, who was so full of medications that he most likely couldn’t have sat still under different circumstances, sighed. ‘Nothing involving water.’

The video which Jim chose included a clip with people who tried to set up tents and failed miserably. Jim was laughing constantly and kept pointing out how much better _he_ would have done, until Spock jumped and groaned inwardly as one tent was swept up by the wind, landed in the fire and burst into flames while the owners were fleeing in every direction.

Jim paused the video instantly. ‘Spock?’

Spock looked at him, hoping his face expressed the _Is this necessary?_ clear enough.

Obviously, it was.

Jim lowered his voice so Leonard couldn’t hear him. ‘Spock, about the bomb – really? You honestly meant …?’

Spock looked up at the ceiling. ‘Jim …’

‘Come on, I want to understand this.’

Why could Spock not deny him this?

‘I am aware of the different ways that word is used’, he said cautiously. ‘But that was not what has been mainly on my mind yesterday.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘With the bomb I merely wanted to …’

‘… show how crass it has been for you to suddenly see things in your mind?’ Jim ended for him as he faltered.

‘Affirmative’ He leaned his head back and fought down the memory of the pressure of Nyota’s hands on his own. ‘At the moment I am incapable of controlling my telepathic abilities. This makes every skin contact … demanding.’

Jim chuckled. ‘Man, I’m sorry, Spock. I don’t actually want to laugh, I feel I’m laughing at you. But …’ He grimaced in an obvious effort to suppress another laugh.

‘It is quite alright. I do not perceive it as insulting if you laugh, as long as I know all this stays … between us.’

The tense containment vanished from Jim’s face and made room for a warm smile. ‘It will, I promise.’ He tapped on the PADD. ‘And now let’s continue!’


	15. #15

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

Leonard rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t be a baby, Jim. This is no school trip, is it? Now off to bed.’

‘But Bones, this is unfair’, Jim argued, who – helplessly tired out – at least finally had packed away his used clothing. ‘It’s mean when I’m allowed to sleep and Spock isn’t.’

‘Jim this is … Spock!’ Leonard changed his strategy. ‘You really could help me out here for once. We are not in preschool.’

Spock, who was holding a third cup of tea in his hands, cleared his throat. ‘Leonard, I do not think I am in any position to dictate Jim when he is to go to bed. But it would be illogical to refrain from sleeping solely because I am not allowed to sleep, Jim. For me sleep dangerous at this point, while you safely can sleep one hour …’

‘But I am not tired’, Jim claimed and yawned. He grimaced. ‘Okay, I am. But honestly, this paltry hour makes me feel horrible. It’s not restful at all, Bones. You better give me stimulants as well. Take a hypospray and go for it, don’t you like that?’

‘This is – we aren’t in the newborn nursery!’ Leonard would have loved nothing more than to tear his hair out. Had Jim pushed aside the seriousness of the situation or was he ignoring it on purpose?

‘I would consider it highly questionable to give stimulants to a newborn, Doctor’, Spock said slightly hoarsely.

Jim’s giggle sounded downright delighted.

Oh, just wait, you dumb Goblin, Leonard thought. From now on you can stew in your own juice. No doctor anymore who grants you a minimum of hygiene; then you can pee into the bed like some prehistoric plague patient. He sighed. He could never to that, and even if he could, there still were Jim and Ben, and if he was absolutely honest with himself, he was relieved without ends to hear Spock give lectures again.

‘Bones, have you cursed me?’ Jim asked that very moment. Again he yawned thoroughly.

‘Sure’, Leonard replied dryly. ‘I’m a hobby witch, have I never told you?’

Again Jim giggled, but without this strangely sweet undertone. ‘Okay, I can’t fight a hobby witch. I’m going to sleep this stupid hour to afterwards certainly be more tired than before.’

‘There we go.’ Leonard crossed his legs and looked Jim in the eyes. They seemed small of exhaustion. ‘And concerning you I feel safe enough to do a careful experiment. If your readings remain as good as in the last days after that standard hour, I will let you sleep.’

‘But Leonard –‘ Spock interposed yet didn’t continue his objection.

Jim smiled at Pointy-Ear before looking at Leonard attentively. ‘If you say we can dare it, I think so to. Everything is better than this one hour. Okay, not _everything_ , I mean – you understand me.’

 

One unremarkable hour. Two unremarkable hours. Three unremarkable hours. No later than after the fifth, at shift change with Ben Leonard would wake Jim up, even though he wanted to grant him the badly needed sleep. He had to be present when Jim woke up.

Spock put up a good fight to hold out against the boredom cause they barely spoke a word in order to not disturb Jim. Well, less words than they did anyways.

Leonard almost felt something like hope. Was it possible that this unnamed horror was withdrawing? That it already had let go of Jim entirely and now Spock as well was on the mend?

A sudden movement on Jim’s bed interrupted him in his thoughts. Reflexively he jumped up – and was looking into Jim’s face, sitting upright on the bed, gasping for breath with eyes wide open.

‘Jim.’ Leonard’s examination with the tricorder, which he had done two times every hour, showed nothing except fastened heartbeats and heightened breathing frequency. Whatever had aroused Jim from his sleep: it left his body alone. ‘Jim’, Leonard repeated.

He turned to him, still fighting for his breath. ‘Bones’, he gasped. His eyes got wet. ‘Bones, I – I’m not sure, but I believe it’s impossible.’

‘What?’ Leonard laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘What’s impossible?’

‘I … I … Bones’, Jim stuttered, face full of unbelieving astonishment. What was he astonished about? ‘Bones, I am way too – _small_.’ Now he grasped his chest even though his breathing was starting to normalize.

‘Oh, Jim’, Leonard sighed. He glanced at Spock who was looking at Jim concentrated. And _consternated_. What was happening here wasn’t conceivable.

‘Spock?’ Jim croaked and bent forward so he could see Pointy-Ear better.

‘Jim’, Spock answered calmly. ‘I am here.’

‘Spock, you need to tell me something.’ Jim kicked his blanket aside, pushed past Leonard and kneeled down in front of Spock on the mattress. ‘Spock. Spock? Be honest. You have to be absolutely honest, okay?’

‘Of course I will.’ Spock seemed absolutely not at ease, but was noticeably trying to hide it from Jim.

‘Spock.’ Jim swallowed hard, repeatedly wiped his face and as he then looked at Spock intently, tears were streaming down his face. ‘Spock, am I dead?’

‘No’, the answer came promptly, together with a deeply overwhelmed look. ‘You are not dead, Captain, I guarantee you that.’

Ugh, Goblin, Leonard groaned inwardly. Avoiding any sudden movements, he took up a hypospray and closed in on them both.

Jim’s face was radiating with utter disbelief. ‘But Spock’, he said quietly. ‘Not _Captain_.’

‘It’s alright, Jim’, Leonard said and took his arm. ‘Come. Spock is too tired for all this and you –‘

‘But Bones, I have to ask him!’ Jim struggled out of his grip. Again he jumped up. ‘ _You_ would tell me _anything_ to calm me down, wouldn’t you? Even that I’m not dead, though it’s not correct.’ He cried, now he really cried and shifted his attention back to Spock. ‘I have to tell you something, Spock’, he managed with shaking voice. ‘I knew Ambassador Spock. I’ve talked to him. Many times. He said we could be friends, and we really were, and Spock, do you know how he died?’

Spock’s eyes widened in shock and he retreated his head a bit as Jim came closer to him, more was not possible for him in his position.

‘Spock!’ Jim called.

Leonard injected the hypospray. A sedative, but none that would make him tired. ‘Shhh, Jim, that’s enough. Come. Come with me.’ He took Jim’s hand like that of a child. Like that of little Demora who for whatever reason had developed a crush on him. Like Joanna’s hand, whenever she – no, he couldn’t think of that. If Jim Kirk reminded him of his daughter, it really was too late.

The medication soon did its work. ‘Yeah, soon’, Jim mumbled and freed himself, looking at Spock, whose face Leonard couldn’t read anymore. ‘You don’t have to be afraid. Wait, I’ll do that.’ With this, he bent forward and activated the controller at the hem of Spock’s heatable jacket, without which Pointy-Ear kept freezing miserably. Despite his confusion Jim seemed to mind not to touch Spock’s hand.

Now reading his face was easy: the Goblin was absolutely flabbergasted, and Leonard’s mood was quite similar.

Jim apparently noticed the confusion. ‘Your shoulders do this … that, when you’re cold’, he turned to Spock and moved his own shoulders up. ‘Is this better?’

‘Goddammit Jim’, Leonard’s lips said without a tone. Could _that_ be possible? _Spock_?

The perturbed Goblin forced himself to nod, and Jim finally let Leonard tow him back to his bed. After five minutes of silence he asked confused, since when he had been awake and why Spock and Leonard were looking so awkward.

No, nothing was over here. Most likely it would be best to spare Jim the details of his blackout for now.


	16. #16

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

_‘Spock. Spock!’_

… There. A call. Louder, louder.

_‘Spock!’_

‘… ock!’

Another call, from the opposite direction.

That was … wrong.

‘Spock!’

‘Dammit Goblin! Stop this bullshit!’

_‘Spock!’_

He wanted to scream as he felt like everything he was seemed to be made of pain. Something grabbed him, wanted to rip him apart. He was being pulled in two different directions at the same time.

‘No! Forget it, dumbass Pointy-Ear!’

Desperate rage in one, impatient anticipation in the other direction, and under endless agony comprehension brushed over him, he had … had to …

 

Spock opened his eyes widely. White, blinding white everywhere and voices, voices …

‘Bones! He’s awake! Spock!’

‘Was about time, bloody hell. Spock. Hey. Stay here, alright? I swear I’ll slap you if you won’t keep your eyes open.’

‘Bones!’

A hand on Spock’s shoulder. The sizzling of hyposprays, penetrative beeping, and he could … had to … _Jim_!

Air filled his lungs without his own doing. The white before his eyes grew pale, until two dark silhouettes became visible, who were bending over to him. A hand was still lying on his shoulder, pressing painfully tight. ‘Spock? Do you hear me? Can you …?’

Jim.

‘What …?’

Spock opened his mouth, wanted to call out, but something hindered him, something …

‘ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MIND?’ Leonard bellowed and grabbed Spock’s forearm to abrasively pull it away from the breathing mask. ‘For Heaven’s sake, Spock, do you _want_ to suffocate? That thing is currently doing all your breathing, don’t you _notice_ that?’

Spock stared at the doctor, whose features got lost in his blurred eyesight and then he tried to distinguish Jim. Jim, who …

With full force he struggled against Leonards hand on his forearm and turned his head, trying to strip off the breathing mask.

‘Spock, calm down!’ Jim’s voice, sounding both calming and scared. ‘It’s okay, you’re alive! You fell asleep again, it took us several minutes to wake you, and …’ he stopped, tightened the grip on Spock’s shoulder. ‘You need to stay awake, do you understand?’

Spock shook his head and, finding a last rest of strength somewhere within his desperation, pulled his arm free of Leonard’s grip and the mask off his face. ‘You are not dead, Jim!’ he gasped. ‘You are not. Not _you_ , you …’

The painful white was increasing again, the beeping got louder, his head seemed to burst and he felt tons on his chest. His fingers, curled around the oxygen mask became limp, and someone put it back on.

‘ _What_ was _that_  supposed to be?’ Leonard raged, furious just like after Spock’s collapse more than a week ago. ‘Goddammit, as if you haven’t almost bit the dust once again just now!’ He seemed to want to tell more, but then only took a hard breath. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Of course Jim’s not dead. He’s standing here, almost in the best of health, quite contrary to you.’

Spock was staring at the ceiling between the two silhouettes. Fatigue overcame him like a gigantic wave. He had fallen asleep again? When? Just now? _Jim was not dead_? Certainly not. He could still feel his hand.

Eyes narrow, he tried to get a clear picture of the two faces in front of him. As the blue in Jim’s eyes became gradually more distinct, he tried hard to get a hold on his eyes, even though it was endlessly hard for him to focus on anything.

‘Shhhh’, Jim hummed softly. ‘Spock, it’s okay. I’m not dead, what are you talking about?’

He shook his head, hoping Jim would understand what he was trying to say: he himself didn’t understand what he said. _Why_ he had said it.

It had seemed  so important, as if he’d had to convince himself of it, because Jim … but he _wasn’t_  dead, und what had Spock … what had he felt in his dream? He jerked up, lifted his head from the pillow and let it fall back again. The sudden rush of power was fading just as fast as it had come. But he had _known_ something. Understood something, for a split second, when he … what?

His understanding faded away, the last minutes seeming more and more meaningless, and the memory of last night returned. Had he felt relatively good the day before during Jim’s blackout, he’d had to fight strongly to not fall asleep only a few hours later. The agitation about what Jim had said following his awakening had drained out reserves Spock had not even known existed. Ben Sulu had given him different stimulants every hour, and obviously it all had been futile. He had fallen asleep.

Even now fatigue was pulling on him, while Leonard was preparing hypospray after hypospray, changing infusions and staring at the monitors, cursing. ‘Spock, you’ll have to hang on for one more week until we arrive. I have no idea if I can get you stabilized again if you fall asleep next time. I still got some things in stock, but I want to wait with them as long as possible. Considering what I’m injecting you already, a human body would have surrendered days ago. I’d rather not poison you.’

Spock nodded and turned his head. As he noticed the PADD, he narrowed his eyes and looked at Jim.

‘PADD?’ he asked promptly and placed the device where Spock didn’t have to move his hand to type.

_am sorry_ , he wrote and looked at Leonard. _have seen something in sleep. not know what anymore. important._

Leonard nodded. ‘Could it be helpful?’

Spock jerked his head in an attempt to signal both affirmation and regret. He had no idea, but in combination with Jim’s blackout the day before he was certain he had come up with part of the solution.

Again he turned to Jim. Leonard had refrained from telling him what he had said in his confusion, and Spock had gratefully joined with him. That Jim and the Ambassador had been in contact with each other did not surprise him now as much as it had the moment Jim had revealed it under tears, but how was he supposed to explain to Jim that _he_ did not even know much more about Ambassador Spock’s death? It was not exactly Vulcan protocol to add extensive information to an announcement of death. A short message as well as the property of the Ambassador, that had been all.

Jim was not pressing as tightly anymore, but made no move to take his hand off Spock’s shoulder. ‘It’s alright, Spock’, he said softly and smiled. ‘If something comes to your mind, let us know, okay? And we’ll pay even more attention so you don’t fall asleep. At a pinch  Bones certainly can get hold of some tasers.’

‘Slaps first, Jim.’

Despite everything, Spock felt the corners of his mouth twitch.


	17. #17

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

Everything was silent, with the exception of the steadily warning beeping of the monitors.

‘I have no idea if I can get you stabilized again if you fall asleep next time’, Leonard had said – and he had been proven right.

Spock had survived the last time he had drifted off, but he hadn’t stabilized anymore. Every second was now a fight against sleep, and he was well aware that it was a fight against death. Three more days until they reached New Vulcan, three days, and nobody was able to say how long it would take before they could help him.

Leonard did no longer curse when he was examining and treating Spock. A fact that scared him more than he could have ever imagined. The doctor was running out of options. What he and Ben Sulu were giving Spock wasn’t approved medication anymore but everything they could come up with.

A human would already have suffered irreparable kidney and liver damage, and in Spock’s case Leonard risked further medication only because it could barely get any worse. _Multiple organ failure_ was the term, hanging unspoken in the air. His pulse was no longer too high; only thanks to the stimulants Spock’s body could keep up a pulse of a hundred and fifty.

Alongside various infusions he now received blood transfusions as well since his body was barely producing blood cells anymore – the proximity to the medbay had paid off after all, as well as Sarek’s influence, who, thanks to Leonard and Jim, had by now been informed of the whole situation. In addition, Spock was shivering despite his jacket and two heating blankets because his body had lost all ability to regulate his temperature.

Three days, at least. He was fighting, but for what? When he had last fallen asleep the temporary understanding had not come, at least he could not remember anything except the pain that even now kept raging in his limbs.

It had been two days since he had last been overpowered by sleep, and his body no longer recovering like in the beginning.

He couldn’t speak anymore; the ventilator did most of his breathing because Spock simply had no strength left to do it on his own.

Communicating via PADD was no longer possible as well; he could barely move anymore and his sight was blurred.

He did not know whether the person on the other bed was Leonard or Ben Sulu.

But he did not have to see anything to know the person on the chair next to his own bed was Jim.

Spock was lying on his side, supported by pillows. Since when? At first needing help with personal hygiene had been extremely unpleasant to him, but now he did not care anymore at all. Often, such as now, he barely even noticed anymore when he was being moved or treated, except that every movement kept sending pain through his entire body.

‘Spock? Do you hear me?’ Jim asked softly as he blinked. Jim was almost constantly talking to him, telling him about news from the crew, about the food, the distance they had covered or stars they passed.

Spock moved his eyes in an attempt to better see Jim and blinked affirmatively.

Jim’s face was only a blurred light spot, but Spock was certain he was smiling. ‘That’s good, we’re almost there now, and soon you’ll feel better.’

It was endlessly hard, but he managed to slightly raise a brow.

Jim seemed to be able to interpret every single one of Spock’s movements and laughed softly. ‘Yes, really. You’ve been holding on until now, so you will manage the rest as well. Everything else would be illogical.’

The corner of Spock’s mouth twitched, or at least he thought so. He didn’t know if any movement could be seen on the outside.

‘That’s what I’m talking about’, Jim confirmed he had seen something. Again he slept for an hour at most at a time and only when Leonard forced him to do so. Apart from this he only left the chair next to Spock’s bed to shower and was barely eating.

Even if he had been better, Spock did not believe he could have expressed his gratitude for Jim’s presence with words. He was glad Jim was there, and he did not care anymore if his emotions were visible.

Memories were creeping into his mind. He grimaced.

‘Spock?’ Jim asked promptly. ‘Is the pain worsening?’

The figure on the other bed stirred. It appeared to be Ben Sulu.

Spock jerked his head to negate and looked at Jim. He had to … Slowly, very slowly he moved his left hand up to his face and touched the breathing mask with his fingertips, ignoring the pain which shot from his fingers to his shoulder.

Jim breathed out. ‘Spock, that … that’s not possible. You need the mask.’

Spock concentrated all his willpower on following the rhythm of the ventilator on his own, his eyes fixed on Jim.

‘Spock, I don’t consider this a good idea. Leonard would never allow it.’ Yes, it was Ben Sulu who had stood up now.

Spock frowned and nodded askingly. His breast muscles were burning, but the airflow though the oxygen mask was changing. The highly modern device constantly adjusted to his own breathing.

‘Do you want to tell me something?’ Jim asked softly. ‘Should we try it with the PADD?’

Spock shook his head dismissively, fingers still on the mask, trying to look impatient.

Jim and Ben Sulu seemed to exchange glances.

‘It’s important to him’, Jim said eventually.

Ben Sulu kept hesitating for a long time. ‘I don’t feel very good about this, but if you can keep up your current breathing, we can try for a moment’, he finally complied.

‘Come, I’ll do that.’ Jim took a pair of disposable gloves out of the drawer of the rolling table to take off Spock’s mask. This way Leonard and Ben Sulu as well avoided skin contact.

Spock pulled in air through gritted teeth. Jim was holding the mask in front of his mouth so the oxygen could still reach him.

‘Spock?’

He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t manage more than a bare audible whisper.

Jim understood his look and dropped his head.

‘My mother’, Spock whispered in his ear. ‘I miss her.’

Jim was staring at him. ‘Spock … of course you do.’

‘I do not wish to die’, he uttered. He was seeing stars in front of his eyes.

‘Jim’, Ben Sulu said warningly. ‘The mask.’

Spock shook his head weakly. ‘Not … yet.’

Jim looked back and forth between him and Ben Sulu. ‘But …’

‘I … Jim …’ His chest seemed to be about to explode. ‘Thank you.’ He closed his eyes and allowed Jim to put back on the mask.

Everything remained silent for a long time. Spock let the machine breathe for him again, he couldn’t do it anymore. Ben Sulu once again sat down on his bed. Hopefully he had not been able to hear what Spock had said to Jim, but even if it made no difference. He would never tell anyone what he had heard.

Jim was silent. Then Spock opened his eyes widely when he felt fingers touching his right wrist. Jim was still wearing the gloves which spared Spock any telepathic images, but he could feel Jim’s pulse and the thin material didn’t hold off the warmth of Jim’s hand, feeling like heat on his own, ice-cold skin.

‘It’s alright, Spock. You won’t die.’ Jim’s voice sounded husky. ‘I … I’ll take care of you. I’ll stay here, the whole time, I promise. Until you get better.’

As illogical the assumption he would get better soon was, Spock could not help but believe Jim.

Because otherwise, he knew very well, what he had said just now would have been his last words.


	18. 18

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

He could do nothing. All his options had run out and his powerlessness was driving his mind to places it didn’t belong aboard the _Variance_.

He knew underneath his composed façade Jim was suffering heavily because so many crew members had lost their lives through Krall under his command. Jim wasn’t the type to simply get over something like this, even though he expertly managed to let the people surrounding him believe exactly that. But no situation Jim and Leonard had been confronted with so far had forced them to face such helplessness. They had always been able to fight, go on, do _something_ , even if that only meant making it clear to Pointy-Ear that they wouldn’t let him croak alone on Altamid.

But now there truly was nothing left Leonard could do for Spock. And he know that feeling, he knew it from before his time as medical officer in Starfleet’s service, and it made him plunge into abysmal bitterness. He hadn’t been able to change anything. There had been no counterpart anymore whom he could have fought with. That gave him a _chance_ to fight. Only one that had wanted to be free again, to be free and to take Joanna away from him and close every single door, before he completely had understood what was going on. What was truly going on.

Spock’s body didn’t react to any of the drugs available to Leonard and Ben anymore. The boy who was lying there on the bed wasn’t even really Spock anymore. It was a pale being who offered a sorry sight and was about to fall asleep within the next minutes, maybe even the next seconds. Physical pain didn’t pull him out of his state anymore. Slaps, needlesticks, punches on the shoulders – useless. And even though Leonard knew the cause of Spock’s agony had to be supernatural, the information he had collected so far didn’t make any sense.

Jim, Leonard wanted to say. Jim, I’m sorry. But he couldn’t do it. His best friend was kneeling on the mattress, bent over the Goblin, clutching his upper arm with all his strength, repeatedly whispering his mantra: ‘You won’t fall asleep, Spock. Only half an hour more. You will do it. It’s not _possible_ you won’t make it, you hear me? You’re staying here.’

Then Spock’s narrowed eyes fell shut.

‘Spock!’ Jim cried out.

‘Jim’, Leonard now managed, hoarsely.

Movement, then more, hastily.

‘Jim, what the hell are you –‘

Spock’s body jerked up and he opened his eyes widely.

Jim had taken off his gloves and reached for Spock’s hands which he now was holding tight.

Leonard felt his eyes go wide. Heavens, that was – even Spock’s pulse quickened! ‘What are you thinking of?’ he croaked and hated himself, hated himself for not thinking of _that_.

‘Tarsus IV’, Jim whispered as his eyes seemed to meld with Spock’s, which were burning with sheer panic.

‘God.’ Leonard took a breath. ‘Couldn’t you have saved up the biggest killer a little longer?’ Of course he knew the story. Jim never lost a word about it when sober, but they both had been wasted together often enough.

‘There are other killers, Bones.’ Jim’s voice was shaking slightly. ‘More personal ones. You know that.’

‘Yes.’ Leonard swallowed and let all sarcasm drop what could have saved _him_ now but what would have been utterly unfair to Jim. ‘I’m sorry.’

Oh, he and Jim had had countless glorious boozing parties and thus Leonard knew exactly what Jim was about to think of within the next half hour. Of a childhood that didn’t deserve the name at all. Of violence of physical and mental kind. Of humiliation without boundaries – through a man who had only ever been a substitute to Jim’s mother Winona for the hero George Kirk, and neither this Frank nor her sons could have ever lived up to him.

Tarsus IV now was a different kind of trauma. A mass murder Jim had had to witness at the age of thirteen because he and his brother Sam had been placed in a boot camp for problematic children by Frank. Shortly after that famine had broken out on the planet after a fungus had destroyed most of the food resources. The rest had made history, and it was little short of a miracle that the boys had survived this horror. The fact that their usually so distant mother almost had broken up with Frank after that hadn’t helped them, and Sam, the older one, had left the family shortly after.

Jim didn’t like to show off these things. Even drunk he always had reminded Leonard he was telling him all this _in confidence_. And now …

‘Jim?’ It was redundant to ask that, Leonard knew that beforehand. ‘You realize what this means? What consequences this will have if you show all this to Spock now?’

‘I do, Bones’, Jim puffed out. ‘He won’t be able to forget this. Nothing of it. This kind of telepathy is too intense for that. But it’s _Spock_ , you understand? I trust him. And it’s his only chance.’ Jim’s voice was barely a whisper. His shoulders were trembling. Tears were streaming down his face from his eyes which didn’t let go of Spock for a second, and Leonard was almost certain Jim had never dealt with those emotions he was now digging up forcefully when sober.

Spock on the other hand kept flinching again and again, as if Jim actually was treating him with a taser. His eyes were now clear and full of a horror beyond all description. And Leonard had no doubt what Pointy-Ear _was_ to Jim anymore, even though Jim still didn’t seem to comprehend that on a conscious level.

‘Bones?’ he know murmured weakly, without letting go of Spock with his hands and eyes. ‘You got to do something really nasty now, what actually would be my task. Crap, I’m sorry.’

Leonard stepped closer, laying his hand on Jim’s shoulder. ‘I have informed Commodore Paris earlier. I had no choice, Jim.’

‘No!’ Jim blurted out. ‘I mean, you’re sounding so apologetically, and you don’t have to. That was what I wanted to ask you to do. Because – we _can’t_ take them all with us. No matter how badly they want to come.’

Leonard squeezed Jim’s shoulder a bit tighter and cleared his throat. ‘In this particular situation I share your opinion, Jim. Not that I’m eager to face a whole hoard of Goblins without an army in my back, but this is something that only concerns us. You, Pointy-Ear and now me as well somehow. We should drag nobody else deeper into this. Commodore Paris has ordered the immediate return of the crew to Yorktown. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

Jim nodded. His shoulders were still trembling.

Leonard closed his eyes for a moment.

They didn’t need to tell each other how bad it felt to exclude their friends against their will from this. To cut them out. Manoeuvres like this weren’t their style, not Leonard’s and especially not Jim’s. But it was necessary, this one time.

Shortly, they would meet up with Ambassador Sarek and a group of Vulcan doctors and healers. The less chaos developed, and the less conflict arose, the higher Spock’s chances were to – yeah, what? Leonard had no idea. Not anymore. All he knew right now was that Jim’s inner horror actually had the potential to keep Spock awake until they arrived New Vulcan’s orbit. The highly modern transporter of the hospital would beam them directly off board, and that was badly necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the cliffhanger - we will upload the next chapter on sunday the 20th, and after that, we will post the next 4-5 chapters on a daily basis to get through The Worst Part faster.


	19. #19

**☆** **Sarek** **☆**

 

Ambassador Sarek was well aware of the investigating looks of Doctor Silak, Doctor T’Rey and the healer Doctor T’Lenn while he was waiting for Doctor McCoys sign.

A few hours earlier, the chief medical officer of the _Enterprise_ had called him from aboard the _Variance_ and asked for a change of plan. Spock was no longer fit for transport and needed to be brought to a hospital as soon as possible.

The transporter of the first hospital of New Vulcan, one of the most modern and best equipped buildings on the planet, was capable of beaming people and items from the planet’s surface and out of orbit.

Sarek’s communicator started to vibrate in his hand.

‘Sarek here.’

‘McCoy. We have reached orbit. I will give you our coordinates. You have to beam as all at the same time, especially Captain Kirk and Spock.’ The voice of the Doctor sounded hoarse from tension. After the destruction of Vulcan Sarek had met him briefly aboard the _Enterprise_ and judged him to be exceedingly competent and considerate, so he had had every reason to take his requests seriously.

Now as well he nodded to the technician at the control station of the transporter. ‘Do as he says. Beam all three of them here together.’

He was aware that his actions had to appear irrational to his company. Doctor McCoys description of Spock’s medical condition had been dramatic and still not very informative, and Doctor Silak seemed to doubt the abilities of the Terran Doctor to treat and examine Vulcans.

Doctor McCoy gave the coordinates and Sarek gave the technician a sign to beam the group down.

What was materializing in the transporter was hard to comprehend at first glance. Doctor McCoy hat his left arm wrapped around Spock’s shoulders and held him, in his other hand he had a portable ventilator.

Captain Kirk was kneeling over Spock, his hands holding Spock’s, tears streaming down his face. ‘Spock, we’re here’, he now whispered and looked at Sarek and the doctor with almost childlike hope in his eyes. ‘We made it.’

The first thing Sarek noticed about Spock were his eyes, full of emotions Spock had never before in his entire life shown with such intensity. An enormous horror, like Sarek himself … knew it very well.

Amanda …

Under the oxygen mask Spock was barely recognizable anymore. His face was sunken, his skin pale like paper.

Sarek did not need five seconds to realize that nothing of what Doctor MacCoy had reported had been exaggerated.

Doctor Silak as well captured the situation within a moment and crouched down next to the trio. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked Captain Kirk.

It was Doctor McCoy who answered. ‘Sleep kills him. There’s nothing left I can do for him on the medical side to keep him from falling asleep.’

Silak stared and Captain Kirk’s and Spock’s hands. ‘And _this_ is your solution? Do you know what you are doing there?’

Aside from fathomless tiredness and desperation, anger flickered across Doctor McCoy’s face. ‘Yes dammit, I know what it means! Can we postpone the discussion a bit? All this won’t help forever.’

Without another word Doctor Silak beckoned Doctor T’Rey to bring the hover-stretcher.

‘I can’t let go of him’, Captain Kirk gasped, as T’Rey and Doctor McCoy were placing Spock on the stretcher. ‘Only when he gets better.’

Sarek watched as Silak activated the bioscans of the stretcher. He did not need to be a trained physician to realise the Doctors had not much time left, regardless whether Spock fell asleep or not.

Captain Kirk slipped onto the stretcher, Spock’s hands still in his. His eyes allowed no doubt that he would not freely let go of Spock now.

The latter gave no sign whether he had noticed the change of scene. He only seemed to perceive what Captain Kirk showed him, and that was beyond Sarek’s imagination. Never before had he seen his son cry, not since he had been an infant, but now tears were running out of his eyes.

Silak lifted the hover-stretcher. ‘Captain Kirk, am I right in assuming you are here because of an unspecific medical issue as well?’

‘Not a grave one’, Doctor McCoy explained. ‘Help Spock, everything else can wait.’

Silak nodded to T’Rey. ‘To the ICU. An examination of Commander Spock’s mental status is not possible at the moment.’ He said that with a side glance to Captain Kirk. ‘First we need to stabilise him.’

Sarek accompanied the group, walking beside Doctor McCoy. ‘I have already talked to the crew of the _Variance_ and arranged for your luggage to be brought to my house’, he informed him. ‘I am obliged to thank you for everything you have done for my son.’

Doctor McCoy breathed out sharply, eyes fixed on the hover-stretcher and Captain Kirk’s back. ‘Don’t thank me. Not yet.’

Sarek’s impression had not misled him: Doctor McCoy was a very intelligent man, not prone to any illusions. Doctor Silak and his staff had hours left instead of days to find an explanation for Spock’s condition and to help him.


	20. #20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhm. This chapter is the one where we ask you to please, please continue to read until chapter 25. We will post them on a daily basis, as things are going to be at their worst for the next five chapters. We know this chapter (and the next) is a horrible mess for everyone, but please, please read on, after chapter 25 everything will be different!

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

He couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t possibly be serious. Jim blinked, fighting for clear sight and searched for the eyes of the Vulcan physician who, if he had heard right, was called Silak. ‘No’, he blurted out and instinctively held on tighter to Spock’s hands. ‘We explained it to you. It’s not possible. I can’t let go of Spock, if I do, he will –‘

‘I you won’t let us do our work he won’t receive sufficient medical treatment’, Doctor Silak cut him off. ‘How do you imagine that to work?’

The two women – healers, doctors, nurses? What were they? Jim had no idea – were working on Spock with translucent devices, but Jim was struggling to comprehend everything that happened. Bones was here, of course, and Ambassador Sarek, and there were Doctor Silak and these busy women, but most of all there was Spock, Spock, who was crying just as he did, and it almost seemed to Jim like Spock was returning the pressure of his hands. Was that possible or was he imagining things? ‘He doesn’t want it’, he reached for the last straw, as thin or imaginary it may be. ‘Spock doesn’t want me to let go of him. It’s dangerous for him, and I can feel –‘

‘Commander Spock is under the influence of _your_ emotions, _Captain_.’ This time it was one of the women who had cut him off, the younger of the two. How old might she be? Maybe forty, in human measure, which meant in truth she was a bit older. He voice sounded mostly as neutral as the one of the Doctor, but her intonation of the word _Captain_ showed – nonrespect.

Nonrespect? Was that a word? God, Jim couldn’t think clearly anymore, blinked again and in this moment of confusion Doctor Silak and the older woman separated Jim’s and Spock’s hands in one move. Suddenly there weren’t Spock’s stone-cold fingers anymore, but rubber gloves, and then nothing. Jim’s hands were empty.

‘Hey!’ Jim almost recognized his own voice. It sounded like that of a desperate boy, and of course, he had had to be a desperate boy in his head in the past minutes, had had to feel what he showed to Spock. He wanted to grab for Spock, to restore the contact, but then the Doctor said something, words Jim in his now entirely different desperation didn’t understand anymore, and then there were Bones’ arms which held him and pulled him away from the hover-stretcher.

‘Jim, let them do their job’, Bones murmured. ‘We both can now only hope for their skill and their equipment.’ The familiar voice caused Jim to feel a little bit safer, but even Bones didn’t understand that he had to get back to –

‘Spock!’ Jim’s call echoed through the highly modern intensive care unit. He hadn’t let go of Spock’s eyes for one second, hadn’t moved his own not even for the slightest moment and now … they broke, Spock’s eyes. As if they fell apart, in billions of pieces, and then there was nothing left. He was gone. Gone, even though the two women and Silak kept treating him with their translucent equipment and injected him with medications, gone, even though Jim had promised him he would make it, he would not die, he was gone, because Jim had let go of him. Spock hadn’t fallen asleep, but he was _dead_.

Jim wanted to scream.

He couldn’t scream.

He became giddy.

He collapsed into Bones’ arms, who more or less carefully laid him down on the ground and dashed back to Spock’s bed, bent over him, and Sarek, there was Ambassador Sarek, and Doctor Silak who confirmed Spock’s death and said something to Bones which made the latter raise his voice for a moment. What were they all saying? Everyone kept saying something, and in Jim there only was a giant void and –

 

There was a throb, he could feel it, a vibration surrounding him. Had he done it? Had he _finally_ done it? It certainly looked like it. Almost laughing, almost crying, he was everything and everywhere, and all his self was vibrating, shining towards the beloved soul.

Then the vibration had reached him, like the first time. There was this feeling of completeness again as he wanted to wrap it with his presence. But the throbbing didn’t return his greeting, once more remaining silent, didn’t even seem to possess colour anymore.

No!

The jolt with which the throbbing was pulled away from him one more let him shudder deep into his core.

_No!_

He had failed.

And now, now he screamed.


	21. #21

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

Spock was dead. Leonard had been prepared for that, had _needed_ to prepare himself for that and had braced himself for this worst of all cases. And to rescue Jim. To do the impossible.

But he couldn’t have prepared for the scene playing out in front of his eyes now. Jim, who hadn’t been responsive for a few minutes, had jumped up from the floor and was _rioting_. Rampaging through the room, through the ICU, snatching devices and throwing them at the walls – and what was even more incredible: He worked up the strength to thrust away not only Leonard, but also Ambassador Sarek, Doctor Silak and additional approaching medical personnel. Everyone who tried to stop him found themselves thrown against walls and to the ground, which got Leonard a bump in the back of his head and infernal headaches. What was going on here? Jim, distraught and out of his senses, successfully went against a group of _Vulcans_?

The sinister soundtrack to this scene was Jim’s unending yelling. Screams for which Leonard didn’t find any fitting comparison. Was that what fighting people sounded like? Tortured people? Or a wounded animal, fighting to the death against a predator? Of all this Jim’s screams reminded Leonard, and still none of these metaphors were enough to describe the horror in his voice.

No one here was armed, but it would certainly only take minutes for the more security to arrive and to put Jim out of commission. There was nothing for Leonard to do, it was going to cost him quite an effort to get Jim out afterwards, and even Spock wouldn’t be able to do … God! Spock was dead! Spock was _dead_ and Jim wild with pain.

“It will accomplish nothing to freak out? _It will accomplish nothing to freak out?_  You seriously tell me that? And you? You all do nothing! _Nothing_!” Suddenly words came out from under Jim’s yelling, after he simply had been requested to calm down by the staff. With his back against the wall and a feverish look in his eyes he stared at the meanwhile about thirty present persons, before fixing on Leonard. ‘Not even you Bones! Not even you!’

‘That’s not fair, Jim’, Leonard crohavehaked. Not with the best will in the world he managed to keep a calming voice anymore.

‘And you!’ Jim suddenly went against Ambassador Sarek. ‘You’re not all that helpful either!’

An indignant murmur went through the group of oh so unemotional Goblins. The security got their weapons up.

Jim on the other hand went still, gasped for air and pressed both hands to his chest.

Not again, thought Leonard. Not again, dammit. He cleared his throat. Carefully he drew nearer to his friend. _Jim_ was still there, and he needed his help. ‘Ambassador Sarek, I ask for your apology for Captain Kirk’s outburst and his current condition’, he managed, eyes on the Ambassador. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying. I assure you as soon as I was able to give him a sedative and talk to him he will –‘

Ambassador Sarek was waiting for Leonard’s next words, but he couldn’t think of anything more. He couldn’t, if he was thoroughly honest, promise anything at all.

As the Ambassador understood there wouldn’t be anything more from Leonard, he began to talk himself, calm and bearing. His voice seemed to fill up the entire hall where they were by now, while the Doctor and the Healer still were busy with Spock’s body. With Spock’s _corpse_. ‘Considering the circumstances I do not intend to hold Captain Kirk’s emotional misstep against him, Doctor McCoy’, said Ambassador Sarek and looked Leonard firmly in the eyes. ‘He accompanied my son through a severe, yet unexplained disease, and you have informed me that the Captain himself has shown weaker symptoms of it. If you think you can account for it from medical point of view, I would like to have you be brought to my house now, where you, provided it is possible for you, get some rest. I will join you as soon as I can leave the hospital.’

Leonard hesitated. ‘And the security personnel?’ was the first thing he said. After all, the hospital intern Goblin Police were standing around with raised weapons.

‘I assume their interfering is not going to be necessary’, Ambassador Sarek answered with confusing gentleness. This man had just lost his son, just as he had lost his wife four years prior. Jim had been on a rampage only a few moments before and insulted Spock’s father. And the guy still invited them into his house? He didn’t want Jim to be arrested?

‘Ambassador, with all due respect’, Doctor Silak tried to interfere, but Ambassador Sarek shut him up elegantly and unambiguously, while seemingly not caring whether his behaviour appeared logical to the other Vulcans: ‘We have much to discuss, Doctor Silak. I ask you to order your security to let Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy unchallenged. Both of them will return here on the morrow in my company so the Captain can be examined.’

As if by command Jim collapsed in this moment, before Leonard had reached him.

‘Jim!’ he called, already on his knees with his tricorder in his hands, sounding more angry than worried as he noticed with a hint of bitterness.

‘Bones’, Jim whispered and tried to focus on him. ‘I fail. I always fail. I have promised the Ambassador I wouldn’t give up. And I promised Spock he would make it. I’ve let go of him, Bones. It’s all my fault.’

‘Horseshit, Jim. You didn’t want any of this crap. And dammit, without you Spock would’ve died back on the _Enterprise_ already.’ _Died_. How easily he vocalized that, though Leonard wasn’t able to fully realize Spock’s death.

Jim didn’t respond, but the tricorder raised alarm. While Leonard had repeated the word _died_ in his mind, the heart of his best friend had stopped beating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Yeah, we know. Things are about at their worst now. Please don't hate us just yet. Read on.)


	22. #22

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

Spock did not remember dying. The last thing he remembered were Jim’s hands, being ripped away from his own and Jim’s voice, yelling for him, and then everything vanished in light, heat and impenetrable darkness, changing way too fast for him to comprehend what was happening.

But although he hadn’t realised he was dying, his mind fully apprehended being dead. There was nothing surprising or unexpected about that. Now, after his death, his thoughts were clearer than in all the previous days of fighting, and separate from Jim’s assurances that he wasn’t going to die he became aware of how empty these promises had been. Whatever had caused his symptoms, his body had already been too weakened for the Vulcan doctors to help him anymore. That was the logical explanation.

But what was this place? Where was he?

‘Finally!’

Every question was interrupted by a glow, rushing up to him, surrounding him and grasping him, until he felt like he was dissolving within it.

A presence he knew, yet … _‘Jim?!’_

That was not possible.

‘Spock!’

After not being able to see anything except light, his eyesight cleared. The fact that he had a body became aware to him the moment he felt arms on his upper arms and then he was looking into two eyes, glowing more intensely than ever before.

Jim Kirk was standing before him, in surroundings Spock still could not see, much less describe, shining as if just now the best thing he could have ever imagined had happened.

‘Spock, what happened? Where have you been for so long? What kept you away?’

But …

‘You are not dead, Jim’, was everything he managed to utter, confused, disturbed and truly horrified over finding _Jim_ here, Jim, who … ‘You have not been in danger. You have …’ Jim had shown him everything, _every horrible thing_ he had lived through in his childhood and youth, all his traumatic experiences, from Tarsus IV up to every seemingly so small mortification through his stepfather.

The joy in Jim’s eyes made way for confusion. ‘What are you talking about? I have been dead for …’ He stopped, and confusion turned into a searching look, as he let go of Spock, looked over him, and then his face alternated between comprehension, horror and discomposure.

‘Jim?’ Spock asked and stepped back, on a ground he could not see. At the same moment Jim seemed to change. Suddenly, he looked different, older, more corpulent.

‘You … are not Spock. You _are_ , but at the same time … someone else.’ Jim’s voice was vibrating from disbelief. Then he smiled. ‘Don’t be afraid. The Jim you know is not dead. He was here once before, years ago, and I would know if he were again.’

Years ago? Jim had been here …?

Khan. Back then, Jim had already died, and he as well as now Spock must have been here in this place before Leonard had been able to bring him back with the use Khan’s blood.

Spock knew he had no control over his face. Every single emotion was visible on it.

‘You are … Captain Kirk from the timeline of Ambassador Spock’, he stammered, endlessly relieved that at least only _he_ and not Jim as well … that with his waiting and hesitating he only had killed himself.

‘Jim? What the hell … _you got him_!’

They had company – from an older Leonard McCoy, looking about confusedly between the original Captain Kirk and Spock. ‘Come on, you didn’t look _that_ bad as an old man, you didn’t have to turn up here as a teenager … wait a moment.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Something’s off here.’

‘An alternate timeline’, Captain Kirk breathed, staring at Spock and in his eyes was a horror for which Spock knew no words. ‘I have reached _you_? And … no.’

The calls. The pulling. In two different directions. The feeling of being pulled out of himself.

Every single piece of the puzzle seemed to fall in place in Spock’s head within the fraction of a second, and he realised, realised with all his mind _what_ was horrifying this version of Jim so deeply.

‘Where is the ambassador?’ he asked.

Leonard and … and _Jim_ looked at each other, then at Spock. ‘Not here’, Jim whispered.

‘But he has been dead for weeks.’ There were more pieces to a puzzle, lying upside down, not giving Spock a clue about what the picture was going to look like in the end.

‘I thought he was here, for a moment, but then … he was gone again. Pulled away. The same thing happened again just now when I thought I finally had reached him. And I … I made a mistake.’

‘Dammit, Jim …’ The voice of the first Doctor faded away to a whisper.

‘You have to go back.’

Spock stared at Jim. ‘I have to …?’

‘It’s a mistake that you’re here. There can’t have passed more than a few minutes. Your body … maybe it’s not too late. You have to go back.’

‘Dann you got to hurry, Jim.’ Doctor McCoy’s words were the last thing Spock heard, before Jim’s presence changed, became bigger, embracing Spock again and taking his physical form away.

 _I am sorry. More than I could ever put into words. I never thought it possible that my attempts to reach Spock … the Spock I knew, could pull_ you _here. You don’t yet belong in this place. You have to go back. To_ your _Jim and to Bones of your dimension. I will never again call for you._

Spock let himself be taken away, was without orientation in this world, which didn’t yet seem to be his own, hoping with all his mind for his body not to be _too_ damaged to let him live on.

… He was going to return. Back to life, to all the memories and emotions which Jim possibly had not shared with him in vain, back … to Jim.

 _Go now_ , the other Jim’s last words reached him, and Spock felt his desperation over the uncertainty regarding the whereabouts of the Ambassador spreading to himself. They would never let go of him.

He did not have the time to respond anything, to try to promise help or even a last glance.

Suddenly everything surrounding him seemed to crush him, suddenly he felt pain again, and it almost made him wish not to go back if he could have evaded the agony.

Everything was too loud, too bright, too hot, too tight, and as he for a moment thought to feel a – _his_ body, the world exploded. He saw light, a room, shapes, and then he was pushed down again, pulled away, and he knew he was no longer where the older Jim could have helped him but that he must win this fight alone.

Holding on to life, fighting for it with every part of his mind and soul, he descended into absolute darkness within himself.


	23. #23

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

Spock had been Jim’s life. It didn’t matter if Jim had been completely aware of that, it was the truth. A truth Leonard couldn’t ignore. The very truth that was the reason why he was tearing himself apart between a ventilated almost-corpse and a true corpse for two days.

Despite several friendly invitations from Ambassador Sarek he hadn’t gone to his house even once so far. He wouldn’t allow being dislodged from the hospital in the near future either. No, he was going to endure, here in this rectilinear building, whose cool design made a harsh contrast to the Vulcan heat. Within the building nobody did anything about the heat, and why would they? It was a hospital on New Vulcan, mainly treating Vulcans, and so Leonard had to put up with the desert temperatures. Only in the morgue he found some cooling, and he did so frequently. He couldn’t let Jim go as yet. He still held on to an irrational hope that his friend would return, return like Spock in the very moment Jim’s heart had stopped.

They both had died of simple heart failure. Considering the previous history Leonard might have found that fascinating, hadn’t this been about his best friends. About _both_ of his best friends. That was how it was, wasn’t it? It was.

So far he failed in explaining this previous history to Doctor Silak and his staff.

And what did he have to offer? Unspecific dreams, followed by physical health problems which had minimised in Jim’s case and maximised in Spock’s. Strange … _visions_? Jim’s panicking question whether he was dead, and Spock’s later, seemingly haunted answer that he _wasn’t_. In addition there was Spock’s assumption all this had to do with the death of his older counterpart, as he and Jim had had their first dreams at the time of the Ambassador’s death.

Even in Leonard’s own ears this story sounded absurd, and he had witnessed it in person. He couldn’t address reproaches to Doctor Silak on a rational level, that he wasn’t taking his remarks seriously and would have preferred to remove him from the hospital rather sooner than later. Leonard must seem like a total nutjob, he was aware of that. Only the fact that Spock had been able to contact his father in person at the beginning of their voyage held his back. Ambassador Sarek had asserted for Leonard to not only have unrestricted access to the morgue, but also was allowed to see and examine Spock day and night. Of course even the Ambassador couldn’t force Doctor Silak to work with Leonard, but he could decide in which way his son was being treated.

His condition gave not much reason to hope. Highly damaged organs. Artificial respiration, artificial nutrition. According to Doctor T’Rey and the healer Doctor T’Lenn Spock had opened his eyes for a moment, as they unexpectedly had succeeded in resuscitating him after several minutes. Since then Spock had been unconscious and was being kept alive by machines. The Vulcan physicists had countless highfalutin phrases, but no actual explanation for his condition, just as they weren’t interested in Leonard’s opinion.

‘But I won’t let them get away with that, you know’, Leonard murmured, as he was standing in front of Jim’s compartment in the morgue at the evening of the second day. He had pulled it out so he could look his friend in the lifeless face. And as he stretched out his hands in gloves to touch Jim’s shoulders, he knew it would be for the last time. _Two days_. For Jim there would be no miraculous return.

Leonard had to inform Starfleet of the latest events; he had postponed it far too long already. Jim’s mother he had to call in person as well, he considered that his duty. And the crew. The only true family Jim had ever known. When all that was done, Starfleet would most likely organise Jim’s transport to Earth and order Leonard back to Yorktown, because in their eyes Spock was in the best of hands on New Vulcan. Oh, but he wasn’t gonna play along there. Never. Even if that meant his farewell to Starfleet.

‘I won’t leave Pointy-Ear alone’, he whispered while he carefully closed the compartment. He was shaking, his whole body was shaking, and his cheeks became wet, but it didn’t matter. ‘I promise, Jim.’


	24. #24

**☆** **Sarek** **☆**

 

‘Ambassador, may I have a word with you?’

Sarek had barely passed the entry hall of the hospital on his way to the ICU as Doctor Silak stopped him.

‘Doctor Silak.’ He followed the head of the hospital to his office rooms. Were there any news? Or did the Doctor only intend to tell about his disapproval concerning Doctor McCoy’s presence once more?

‘I am aware that Doctor McCoy, in the current situation, may be emotionally compromised, even though I would expect differently of a trained physician.’

It was about Doctor McCoy, which meant Spock’s condition could not have changed considerably. At the given time this was a relief, as Spock’s body was in a state in which an overcome night was no guarantee, and it was too soon to expect massive improvements.

Yet still, Sarek would have appreciated to hear some words about Spock from Doctor Silak.

But Doctor Silak was not someone who considered the unchanged condition of one his patients as more noteworthy than a human doctor who kept acting unreasonably emotional whenever he was asked to leave Spock’s room.

‘I have been under the impression to have communicated my opinion on that matter quite adequately, Doctor Silak. I wish for Doctor McCoy to take part in my son’s treatment whenever possible. He already has been treating him and keeping him alive for several weeks, an accomplishment whose value you should be capable of valuing more than I am.’ He met the eyes of the hospital manager. ‘As far as I am informed there are not many options other than trying to keep Spock alive at this point. Unless he wakes up, it will also be almost impossible to assess his mental state and I do not wish for any examinations to happen without my, Doctor McCoy’s or Spock’s own consent.’

Doctor Silak nodded slightly. ‘Your orders are quite clear, Ambassador. As long as Doctor McCoy allows my staff to do their work and does not condone to violent behaviour like James Kirk before his death, I will continue tolerating his presence.’

‘I am convinced there will not be any problems concerning that.’ Sarek suppressed a hint of irritation and left the office.

Spock’s room was at the end of the hallway, where it was quiet. The door slid open soundlessly.

Nothing had visibly changed indeed since the day before. Spock’s emaciated body almost vanished between the respirator, the IVs, blankets and heat lamps.

Doctor McCoy was sitting on a chair, back to the door, eyes on the bed. As Sarek entered, he startled and rose up. The distrustful look in his eyes relaxed a bit. ‘Ambassador’, he murmured, sitting down again.

Sarek let his eyes rest on Spock for a moment, before he sat down on a chair opposite of the Doctor.

‘Are there any news?’ he asked silently. Even if there were none, Doctor McCoy’s answer was going to be much more satisfactory than that of Silak.

‘Tonight was critical.’ McCoy blinked. ‘It still is. But right now he is more stable.’ He snorted bitterly. ‘Whatever that means. Without the heat lamps he still couldn’t keep his body temperature up. All these medications keep his pulse at a hundred-and-seventy, that’s better than before our arrival.’ Horror crept into his eyes. Before their arrival Captain Kirk had still been alive. ‘The best news still is that the machine is doing only ninety-three percent of his breathing work. He lacks the strength to breathe on his own, but at least he has a breathing reflex. That indicates some form of brain activity.’

Doctor McCoy rubbed his eyes. Every one of his movements spoke of exhaustion. ‘The scans don’t show any visible brain damage, but my experiences with human brains prove there’s no relying on that.’ He cast a look at Spock and pressed his lips together. ‘As long as he doesn’t wake up I have absolutely no idea what will be after that.’

Sarek got up again and took a long look at Spock’s face. Never before had he seen it so bland, no matter how hard Spock had tried to keep a neutral expression.

‘What are you doing?’ Doctor McCoy asked and stood up as Sarek carefully laid his fingers on Spock’s face. Despite the heat lamp his skin felt cool.

Sarek lifted his other hand and the Doctor fell silent. He closed his eyes trying to establish a telepathic connection to Spock.

Minutes later he drew his fingers back and watched the screens monitoring and recording Spock’s bodily functions. Nothing had changed.

Doctor McCoy, to whom Vulcan telepathy did not seem to be completely foreign, looked at him expectantly.

Sarek’s compunction as he shook his head surprised even him.

Doctor McCoy breathed in sharply.

‘Do not worry, Doctor’, Sarek reassured as he became aware of how his reaction must look to the Doctor. ‘I was not able to establish a telepathic connection to Spock, but I can sense him.’

‘How can you …’ Doctor McCoy stopped, under all his tediously upheld composure unable to take more.

‘Imagine a house, Doctor McCoy’, Sarek tried to put his impressions into words. ‘You can see it, but the door is locked and there is no light behind any window. No matter how much you knock and call, no one will react. But the house is there and you know it is not abandoned.’

The Doctor nodded slowly.

‘I do not see any reason why Spock should not wake up as soon as he is ready. Yet I cannot give you a time. When his body recovers? Within days? Weeks? We can only wait and try to support his body while it heals.’

Leonard McCoy, who for days was standing up against the entire Vulcan hospital personnel with almost inhuman calm, controlling his fury perfectly, supported himself with both arms on the edge of Spock’s bed, closed his eyes and remained silent.

Sarek moved over to the window and looked at the city, whose Vulcan architecture seemed absurdly modern. Humans thought differently about emotion and showing them, but Sarek had experienced that most of them still preferred emotional situations like this being handled with discretion.

‘Thank you’, Doctor McCoy eventually said, his voice only a whisper between the beeping of the monitors.

Sarek watched him. ‘I know it is not easy for humans to live among Vulcans. My wife has taught me that. I ask you not to take Doctor Silak as a normative representative of Vulcan society. It may at times seem that way, but do not think life and death of close person’s do not matter to us.’ A fact most Vulcans had once liked to repress – but the destruction of Vulcan had showed every single one of them their fallacy. There was no living Vulcan who had not lost at least one family member or friend.

Doctor McCoy did not answer, and Sarek did not want to make the impression of expecting him to do so.

‘Now I have to ask you to get some rest, Doctor’, he changed the topic. ‘Shower, eat something and sleep for a few hours. In my house or here, I leave that to you. I will remain here in the meantime. It is my explicit wish for you to stay physically healthy, because I do not entrust the wellbeing of my son to anyone more than you.’

Had Doctor McCoy looked like he was about to object at first, he now seemed to change his thoughts. ‘I’m staying here, in the hospital’, he said with such determination that Sarek had no doubt nothing in the world could have changed his opinion. ‘I will be back in half an hour, then I will lay down.’ He pointed his chin towards a small bed in the far corner of the room, before he left the room after one last, long look at Spock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, keep your fingers crossed for Spock a bit more.  
> One more chapter tomorrow and then back to 1-2 updates a week, we can't keep up the daily updates as only 34 chapters are translated at this point, but after chapter 25/26 the worst will be over, at least for you readers and us, as we soon will know much more than Bones or Sarek themselves.  
> Thank you for reading!


	25. #25

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

The biting cold reached him even before he fully sensed his body. It felt as if someone had fished him out of a basin full of darkness whose atmosphere had been numbing his senses. Now he was being laid down outside the dark, and it was to him as if he slipped into a coat of sore flesh.

First it was only his neck and fingers aching from the cold, but the sensation quickly spread centimetre by centimetre over his body, and eventually it seemed to him as if he had been skinned alive.

What he saw was a clear starlit sky over snowflakes dancing in the moonlight. When had he opened his eyes? He couldn’t remember.

Get up. He had to get up. He would freeze if he didn’t. Certainly, he had grown up in Iowa and was quite used to cold. But the temperature in this place almost cut into his flesh; the snow in which he was lying seemed to bite into his naked arms. Jeans, thin sneakers and a black T-shirt, he hadn’t worn more when he had been beaming down to New Vulcan with Spock and Bones.

He couldn’t move. Crap, his limbs felt like they were frozen. How long had he been lying here already? Where _was_ he anyway, damned? He had to get back to Spock, urgently; if he let go of Spock’s hands for too long he would – no.

No!

The memory of Spock’s breaking eyes shot like an arrow through Jim’s head. And he, he had fallen to the ground, hadn’t he? His legs hadn’t supported him anymore. Why was there snow on New Vulcan? And Spock, where had they brought his body? And Bones, where was he? Bones would come looking after him, Bones knew he – he what? He had no idea.

The pain was paralyzing his thinking, like the snow was holding his already stiff body on the ground.

Spock

Spock’s eyes.

Spock was gone, forever gone, away from him.

And it was his, Jim’s fault. He had let go of Spock’s hands. He had let it happen that stupid Doctor Silak separated them. And he hadn’t told Spock how important he had been to him, not really. He had been so important to him that Jim wished to have died in Spock’s place. Tears dripped out from the corners of his eyes and froze on his skin within seconds. He tried to sniff, but whatever was in his nose was frozen as well. Taking all his remaining strength he got up into a sitting position, and he didn’t even know why. What was he supposed to do _anywhere_? Where did he want to go? It was more instinct than his own will which eventually brought him up on his shaking legs.

‘Bones?’ He tried to ask, but only managed a caw. His body was shivering violently now, teeth chattering loudly.

Surrounding him: seemingly endless space. But this wasn’t space. This was a deserted, untouched snow-covered landscape. Snow, as far as the eye could see. The sky clear, the moon bright. This was not New Vulcan, no chance. And there! To the north, with narrowed eyes, he might be seeing something that could be mountains or a large forest. Or imagination, that as well seemed possible to Jim.

Beyond the spot where he had just been lying, the shin deep snow was untouched. No footprints, no signs of life at all. What was currently falling from the sky were only soft snowflakes, not useful for hiding traces quickly.

Jim cleared his throat. ‘Bones?’ He asked, now easily audible. Of course there was no answer, and because that was the case, because he was alone anyway and no one was able to hear him, he added whispering: ‘Spock.’

Then he allowed himself to cry.

 

Face incrusted with frozen tears, Jim fought his way forward. Whatever there was out there, mountains or a forest or a hallucination, he had to reach it.

He didn’t know for how long he had been wandering through the snow masses.

He didn’t know when the soft dance of snowflakes had begun to turn into a snowstorm, forcing the bitter cold deep into his bones.

He only knew every tendon in his body was as good as frozen and he was moving like a robot. That he was sweating from the strain and the sweat kept freezing on his body. His hair had turned into strands of ice no longer fluttering in the storm, because they as well had stiffened.

His head was aching.

His lungs were aching.

Further, always further.

When he was here, maybe Bones was as well. Yes, he tried to imagine: if he only made it to that damned forest, Bones would be waiting for him there, Bones net to a shuttle, and he would say: ‘Goddammit Jim, finally. You made it through this snowstorm, you’ve been walking through this cold for kilometres, and now we’re gonna get Spock and fly back to Yorktown. It was all a mistake, you know? Some kind of dare for you. If I can get my hands on the idiot who came up with this crap I’m gonna slice him up by myself, you can count on that. Doesn’t matter, you’re here, Jim. You made it.’

God, what was he thinking?

He was already hallucinating!

And then, there, the light!

He cried out, choked on the snow, coughed, breathed in again and started to run like he was out of mind and fell down. He didn’t feel his body anymore, not really, so it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He wouldn’t find Bones, and Spock was dead. You’re here, Jim, he thought feverishly, and his lips were moving soundlessly as he added: but you shouldn’t talk to yourself.

With that he surrendered. Whatever was happening here, he would leave his coat of sore flesh behind. It was better that way.

 

‘You are here, Jim’, a voice said. It was a warm, soft voice with a raucous sound to it, and he thought he recognized it.

That’s impossible, he thought fuzzily, but wasn’t sure what he meant by that. What was impossible? That he was here? Wasn’t he?

His fingers were hurting, and someone was doing something to them that felt horrible. Held them, the fingers of his right hand, and did something, coated them with something. An ointment, it had to be, and it was burning.

‘… ot’, he managed

‘Yes’, the voice answered. ‘I am sorry. But I will explain once more what I am doing there, and you can listen to me until you believe it possible to open your eyes.’

‘Uhumm’, Jim made, suddenly limp. His eyes were actually closed, and still his head was spinning.

‘The tincture with which I am agonizing you at the moment mostly consists of common horsetail’, the voice said, and it again sounded so warm, so soft and at the same time so raw that Jim would have liked to fall asleep on the spot, hadn’t his fingers been burning so badly. And his toes. And his face. ‘Not my first choice in treating second-degree frostbite, but unfortunately the only medical plant I successfully rose here so far. I will spare you an extensive disquisition on the circumstance of how much of a paradox that is at this point.’

‘Thank you’, Jim murmured. He knew very well how things like this went: telling any informative, but in the end unimportant stuff so the patient calmed down; Bones did this all the time in sickbay, and it didn’t matter how paradox the raising of this plant was.

‘No bother at all, Jim.’ To the warmth and softness of the voice an audible smirk had come. ‘If you like, you may open your eyes. I can almost certainly rule out that there has been any damage to them.’

‘Soon.’ Jim swallowed, even though his throat hurt, and thought down the strange dizziness. ‘Ambassador Spock, where are we here? I don’t understand all this.’

In that very second he opened his eyes, jerked up and pulled his hands to him. An explosion before his eyes, sparks, dancing lights. Then his sight cleared only to be clouded again by tears in the next moment, which he blinked away with difficulty, even though his cheeks were burning furiously from the contact with the tears. He breathed. Only breathed. And couldn’t conceive it. Jim looked into an old, attentive, with profound warmth almost glowing face he had thought lost forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the last of the daily updates.  
> Nobody is dead! Not even Spock Prime, yay!


	26. #26

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

The fact that the Ambassador was still alive, alive and well, perfectly added up to the series of unfathomable events piling up in Jim’s head. Though _well_ wasn’t a truly specific term in this case. Ambassador Spock had slimmed down a lot, and considering he had been a slender man before, this was not an insignificant thing. Aside from that he did seem fine. He appeared to be the exactly the man Jim knew. Like the _human_. Yes, that was what Ambassador Spock was to him and had always been. Instead of his usual elegant robes he wore clothes with strangely crooked stitches, but at the moment that was their smallest problem.

‘I don’t understand all this’, Jim repeated after a few minutes of silence in which the Ambassador watched him politely and bidingly. The sat on a couch out of dark green fabric and with a recamier. It was everything else than modern, but surprisingly comfortable. Apparently they were in some kind of log cabin in the forest. Not only the walls, but the kitchenette and the table and chairs were of light wood. Not far from the couch there was fire crackling in an outdated brick chimney, on the also wooden floor laid several dark red carpets. Under different circumstances Jim would have loved this room. In front of the windows left and right of the table the snowstorm was still raging.

‘Unfortunately I have to tell you that my own incomprehension concerning this place hasn’t diminished since my arrival’, Ambassador Spock answered with honest regret in his eyes. God, _he_ as well had no idea where they were?

Jim took a breath. Timidly he looked at his burning hands, red, swollen and covered in blisters, which the Ambassador had carefully dabbed with greenish tincture. With his own, ungloves hands. He was about five times older than … Spock. Than Spock had grown. His telepathic abilities had to be immense, and as Jim had fallen into the snow everything he had been capable of feeling had been lying around in his head openly.

‘Concerning everything you have been through I actually know more than I do about this place’, Ambassador Spock seemed to read his unasked question off his face. ‘When I heard your voice out there, your cry, then –‘ he paused, collecting himself. ‘It wasn’t _you_ I expected that first moment’, he quietly continued. ‘As I do not tend to seek refuge in fantasies, which indicates that this place does not do my mind much good.’

Jim forced himself to nod. The movement seemed strangely tiring to him. _His_ older self, of course. The Ambassador had thought of the first Jim Kirk. How disappointing must it have been to him that only he, Jim had been turning up here.

‘What you emitted when I found you in the snow was extremely intense, even though you had lost consciousness’, the Ambassador continued. ‘After I had realized it was you who had almost fought his way to this cabin my first thought was that of rescue. But when I put you into dry clothing I eventually had to realize you were stranded just as I was. Forgive me for not shielding myself from what was so openly perceivable to me; I was hoping for new discoveries. Now you have found me a second time unintentionally within snow masses.’

Jim swallowed hard before he could bring himself to answer. ‘Officially you’re dead, Ambassador’, he managed hoarsely. ‘I mean, officially you’re dead, Spock.’ It felt displeasing to him to not get the _Ambassador_ out of his head even though Spock had offered him to address him more personal years ago. But there still had been _Jim’s_ Spock, and having two Spocks in one head at times proved troublesome. ‘You were buried on New Vulcan. Spock has … received your assets, I know that much. And now … now …’ His voice faltered. The dizziness wouldn’t retreat out of his head.

‘I know.’ Was he erring or sounded Spock’s voice frail as well? ‘I forced myself to not be sure until I truly heard it from you, but it was what you emitted, even as you had been unconscious. Spock’s death.’ Yes, it broke at the last word, this raw voice he had grown so fond of. And there, in these attentive, dark eyes were tears, and Spock didn’t seem to give one thought to fighting or hiding them.

‘I’m sorry’, it came out of Jim’s mouth, and to see the old man in front of him cry made his eyes damp again as well. ‘I’m so sorry. I let go of him. His hands, because this frigging Silak wanted me to.’

‘Doctor Silak?’ Spock asked, surprised, and as Jim nodded, ha added: ‘An exceedingly demanding person. One whose own medical professionalism is more important to him than the wishes of his patients. And in addition someone to believe my supposed death to be quite plausible after I had stubbornly refused to undergo the cardiac treatment he had come up with for me. Do you know the cause of my death, Jim?’

He shook his head. ‘Spock didn’t tell me’, he voiced weakly. ‘He has – rarely told my anything on his own at all.’

‘It is possible he did not know himself’, the old Spock answered mildly. ‘It is not usual among Vulcans to embellish death messages with long medical histories. My mother was human, and I am one hundred sixty years old. The news of my death might not have surprised anyone very much. Yet considering the fact I feel quite alive I would find it interesting to know more about the circumstances of my death.’

Again Jim nodded. His lips were shaking, and as he looked down on himself, he recognized he was wearing the same crookily sewn clothing as his opposite. ‘What about the strange stuff we’re wearing?’ he asked thinly.

The Ambassador, no, _Spock_ laid a hand in his shoulder. ‘It appears to me that I am no gifted fashion designer’, he said with a warm smile in his voice which seemed horribly inappropriate considering their overall situation, yet still calmed down Jim in a never before experienced way. ‘I will later show you the room where I have sewn these clothes, and I assure you, the working material is responsible for these seams and not my sense of proportion. But now I ask you to show _me_ what led to Spock losing his life. And everything else that has unsettled you so deeply. Touching your hands was enough to communicate some impressions to me, impressions and images. I was able to see Spock’s last look, which he gave to _you_. But it has not been enough for me to comprehend more detailed context.’

Wordlessly, Jim closed his eyes and held out his face to Spock. His head was in chaos, but Spock wouldn’t have any problems to find the right tracks, to follow them back up to the night when the strange dreams had taken their beginning. The time when Spock supposedly had died. Jim’s memory was still overflowing with the gruesome memories he had pulled to the surface for Spock, _his_ Spock, but those wouldn’t hinder the older one. Jim trusted Spock. He trusted every Spock in the universe one hundred percent, because something deep inside him couldn’t do any different. Even if that something was almost falling apart.


	27. #27

**☆** **Sarek** **☆**

 

At first glance, there weren’t any visible changes in Spock’s condition. Even after more than two weeks he was showing no signs of consciousness, looking more dead than alive within all the machines that kept him alive.

Only the second glance revealed the truth. Sarek was easily capable of judging the readings on the monitors by now. For a whole week nobody had been willing to give a prognosis regarding Spock’s survival, until his body eventually had begun to regenerate after all. At the moment Spock was doing almost forty percent of his breathing on his own, and his pulse had been stable for days.

Spock was alone, what was unusual. Not once in the past two weeks had Sarek entered the room without finding Doctor McCoy here.

‘… excuse me, but only over my dead body!’

He had no time to ask himself where the Doctor was, as his voice echoed through the whole hallway.

‘Doctor McCoy, be reasonable.’

That was the voice of Doctor T’Lenn, who, aside from Doctor Silak, was officially responsible for Spock – while in fact nothing in Spock’s room happened without the presence of Doctor McCoy.

‘I am being goddamn reasonable, you know what the Ambassador said and I won’t the hell allow you to tamper around in Spock’s brain, got me?’

The door slid open and both newcomers saw Sarek.

‘Ambassador’, Doctor T’Lenn greeted. She was one of the few experts for mental processes in Vulcans who was still alive. This was the reason why she had been called in to Spock’s treatment, before things had took such a dramatic turn.

‘Doctor T’Lenn.’ He nodded to her and McCoy. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘You could say so’, it slipped out of the latter’s mouth, who was visibly furious.

T’Lenn’s eyebrows rose. ‘I do not see the problem with this proposal. This might be the best time for such an attempt.’

‘What kind of attempt?’ Sarek asked.

‘To reach Commander Spock’s consciousness through a mind meld’, T’Lenn explained. ‘I accepted his case on the assumption that this was exactly what would be expected from me.’

‘Yeah. _Before_ he went into a coma after being clinically dead for minutes’, Doctor McCoy hissed. ‘God, yeah, we have no idea why all this crap happened, but what good would it do _now_ to poke around in his brain? You really believe you’re gonna find any anwers there? He doesn’t even know himself what happened to him. And if you wanna tell me it’s unproblematic to mess around in the memories of a comatose patient, you have to excuse me if I doubt your qualifications.’

The door slid open again and interrupted T’Lenn before she could answer.

‘ _Doctor_ McCoy. I have asked you repeatedly to not inform every person in this building of your opinion at once’, Doctor Silak stated, before noticing Sarek. ‘Ambassador Sarek. Commander Spock’s condition is improving by the day. It would be in our interest to advance more offensively in the exploration of the causes of his illness. And more invasively.’

‘A mind meld on a unconscious individual? Without an urgent reason?’ Sarek allowed himself a disapproving expression. ‘Doctor Silak, I cannot approve of such a procedure. Especially not regarding my son. He is recovering, while mostly being left in peace; I am not inclined to risk interrupting this tendency. Now that we can assume that he will survive any mental examinations depend solely on his consent. This is my last word on that matter, and I hope you are not about to unsettle my faith in your work again.’

‘I understand, Ambassador. As you do not appear to be interested in a diagnostic treatment, I will withdraw Doctor T’Lenn’s involvement in this case. Furthermore Commander Spock will be treated as best as possible, but I myself am not going to take part in it anymore, as Doctor McCoy has taken over all responsibility already.’ With that, he turned around and left the room, followed by T’Lenn.

Doctor McCoy was panting with rage. ‘Dammit, another scene like this and I will translate the Hippocratic oath to Vulcan.’

‘I am afraid Doctor Silak is a representant of the Vulcan people considering logic as superior to everything else, even more important aspects of our culture’, Sarek tried to explain in a way that did not sound apologetic and was not supposed to do so.

‘The part about mind melds having to be consensual, right?’

Sarek nodded. ‘Consent I do not believe Spock is going to give.’

Doctor McCoy first looked at Sarek, then at Spock, and his lips twitched. ‘And I always thought Spock was a demanding specimen of his kind. Yet he’s totally harmless.’ He stopped and his eyes returned to Sarek. ‘Don’t you ever tell him I said that.’

The fleeting amusement flattered Doctor McCoys looks. He seemed younger for a moment, after the past two weeks had seemed to let him age years. He still slept only an hour at a time, in this room, only left it to shower and get his meals – and to argue with the hospital staff.

To what extent Doctor McCoy was in contact with the rest of the crew of the _Enterprise_ , Sarek could not estimate. Captain Kirk’s body was well on its way to Earth, and due to the long time of transport it was to be assumed Doctor McCoy had been the last person to see the dead Captain. Sarek was fairly sure McCoy’s contact with Starfleet was not entirely unproblematic, yet he did not deem it appropriate to ask the Doctor for details.

The sanguine moment was fleeting as Doctor McCoy became serious again. The constant tension was taking its toll, and there was no ending in sight. No one could foresee in which state Spock would be when he eventually would wake up – and how long it would take for him to fully recover as still nobody knew what had brought him on death’s door in the first place.

‘What …’

Sarek looked up, following Doctor McCoy’s eyes to the monitors. He immediately noticed the cause for the Doctor’s attention. Spock’s pulse, stable at two hundred and three, was rising. Within thirty seconds it had reached two hundred and forty-four.

‘Doctor McCoy? What does this mean?’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t say for sure’, he whispered. ‘But … it could be a sign that he’s starting to wake up.’

For the fraction of a second Sarek felt his face slip. He breathed out silently. ‘Now?’

‘It’s unlikely that he’s about to become fully awake. The unconsciousness is too deep for that. But the temporary rise of heart and breathing frequency’, McCoy gestured toward the respirator, ‘often are signs of beginning awakening. This can happen within days, but he just as well could remain in this state for weeks.’

Sarek withstood the temptation of searching for Spock’s mind like before. He had done it once already, two weeks prior, and after forbidding Silak and T’Lenn to do that so vehemently two weeks prior, he did not deem it appropriate to reach for Spock’s mind in any way.

Though Doctor McCoy had stressed how unlikely it was for Spock to actually wake up in the next minutes, he seemed to be about to give in to the irrational hope that exactly this actually would happen. He kept his eyes on Spock’s face, whose pulse remained on the same level for minutes and the respirator was doing only about fifty percent of the breathing.

Sarek himself was did the same as McCoy; for years he had been aware that his logic wasn’t infallible in every situation.

‘Come on, Goblin.’

Goblin?

Doctor McCoys lips had been barely moving and Sarek was sure he thought he had spoken too silently even for Vulcan hearing.

Sarek decided to let him continue thinking that.

Spock’s pulse only slowed down ten minutes later to its previous level. It took just as well for his breathing to get weaker again.

Doctor McCoy breathed out slowly and then looked up to Sarek. ‘Now he’s exhausted. He will need a few more days.’

Sarek allowed himself to feel some of the relief that was written on Doctor McCoy’s face.

He kept regarding the Doctor, who, supporting himself with one hand on the bed, was still watching Spock.

Sarek had not seen Spock for years, as he had been lightyears away on board the _Enterprise_. They had not had any regular contact as well, much less had Spock disclosed any news about his private life to him. Sarek knew his son had been in a relationship with another graduate of Starfleet Academy for some years, but assumed this connection did no longer persist.

Yet obviously he had not only had more than a positive working relationship with Captain Kirk, but with Doctor McCoy as well.

He was watching the latter, examining the medical equipment in the room and felt an idea forming in his mind.


	28. #28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, sorry for the long wait! Translating is rather slow at the moment, so we try to stretch the completed chapters out a bit.  
> Once a week should still work.

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

‘You’re not serious’, Sulu said. He and Ben almost simultaneously leaned forward and seemed to want to crawl into the screen to examine Leonard’s face for hints of an error.

‘I’m not, no. Jim’s mother is’, Leonard corrected. He couldn’t comprehend why he still called Sulu by his last name in his thoughts, while Ben was simply Ben to him. Most likely because he couldn’t call them both Sulu, and because he was catching on much slower regarding personal changes than he was willing to admit to himself. He was not Jim, easily hopping between duty and free time and almost always intuitively right in meeting others. No, he wasn’t Jim. He wasn’t. No one was ever going to be Jim again.

‘But she can’t do that’, Sulu pressed on. Hikaru. ‘I mean, Jim is not some unknown boy from the countryside. There are a lot of people who want to bid their farewell to him. _All of us_ for example.’

‘I know that, Hikaru’, Leonard responded, voice rough. He barely managed to force words over his lips. Even breathing came no longer naturally to him whenever he was forced to talk about Jim and his death.

‘What about the admiralty?’ Hikaru grimaced slightly. Two and a half weeks ago he, as well as the whole heart of the crew, had been quite agitated about Leonard involving Starfleet so Commodore Paris would order every crew member of the _Enterprise_ except Jim and Leonard back to Yorktown. Hikaru had planned to do so anyway to be with his family, but one didn’t make themselves popular with moves like that, not even with oneself. Not, if one belonged to the _Enterprise_. Not if one knew Jim. _Had known_.

‘The admiralty won’t do anything against it if Jim’s family has decided for a small funeral service with only family attending’, Leonard answered. ‘On the contrary, they’ll even provide security to shield the family from the press, should the secret place in Iowa get known. And there will be giant services on several planets and space stations. Like on Yorktown. Come, on guys, we don’t need a coffin to say goodbye to Jim.’ Because I can’t do that anyway, he added in his thoughts. Not for a long time, and maybe never for good.

Hikaru wanted to object again, but Ben stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘That is true’, he then said and looked Leonard directly in the eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Shit, Leonard, I’m so sorry. Get in touch if I can help.’

Leonard could only nod towards Ben with delay. It was the first time anyone gave _him_ their condolences. It felt strange. Scary. And it was so damn necessary. ‘Thank you very much, Ben’, he managed after what felt like hours and noticed his voice was barely audible anymore. Feeling tears come into his eyes, he disturbingly helpless raised his hands and ended the connection.

He had stopped monitoring the status of the ship transporting Jim’s body back to Earth. It didn’t change a thing knowing where the lifeless body of his best friend was laying around now or tomorrow. But it changed something if he took care of the one being for which Jim would have given more than his life. Harshly, he wiped the tears from his eyes and turned back to Spock.

Ambassador Sarek had seriously managed to end Spock’s treatment in the hospital and to have all necessary medical equipment transported into his own house to hand over the further medical care of his son to Leonard alone. Leonard hadn’t yet fully realized all that, and it became ever harder for him to measure up Sarek, who in many ways behaved differently than one would have expected from a Vulcan ambassador. But these new circumstances relieved him. They relieved him deeply.

Of course he was aware of the pressure now resting on his shoulders alone. This fact had let Sarek, according to his own statement, hesitate at the beginning. When Spoke woke up, they both knew very well they wouldn’t be able to avoid reaching out for Doctor T’Lenn again – at least in the case the symptoms because of which Spock, Jim and Leonard had travelled to New Vulcan in the first place, should return. Leonard didn’t understand anything about this Vulcan voodoo.

But he understood a lot about his actual job, and at the moment everything seemed as if his patient wouldn’t take much more time before his return. All brain scans were promising, Spock’s central nervous system was becoming increasingly reactive and every now and then, like in this moment, the Goblin took over almost two thirds of his breathing.

‘Jim would be delighted’, Leonard whispered, shaking off his inhibition. ‘So keep up the hard work.’ Abandoning himself to an impulse, he slipped on a one-way glove, hesitated – and softly stroke Spock’s black hair out of his face.


	29. #29

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

It was too much.

It was all too much.

Krall, the battle, the dead colleagues and friends. The dreams, their physical consequences, the blackouts. The voyage. Spock’s frightening progressing … _deterioration_. Doctor Silak and the other Vulcans. Spock’s again and again returning emotional distance, making it impossible for Jim to reach him. The moments when he got through to him, when Spock honestly let himself in on their conversations, their _friendship_. And eventually, Spock’s death. Sometimes Jim was unable to look at this series of events in their correct order. Und the fact that Spock, the older Spock and he were now stuck in this strange dimension – or whatever it was – and that Bones now might be mourning for _two_ dead friends, as well as the Vulcans thought the Ambassador dead, finished him off.

Whatever this place might be, it seemed to function on a Terran scale. There was a sun, a moon and countless stars. There were no chronometers here, but the days and nights were about as long as on Earth. Spock’s sense of time was unbeatable, and he was sure regarding that. Since his arrival, which had happened in a similar manner like Jim’s, he had been keeping track of the stars and counted the days. When he wasn’t mistaken, and he most certainly wasn’t, Jim had now been here for two weeks, and Spock eight.

There was more they had in common since their arrival than the feeling of being picked out of a pool of darkness and being stuffed into a sore body. More in common than frostbite and an unending march through the snow.

They both had been in the same hospital on New Vulcan as their existence _prior_ to this dimension had ended. Spock’s memory ended at the time of a control examination, Jim’s at the time of _his_ Spock’s death. The younger Spock’s. How did he repeatedly turn to this possessive term? Spock was not a toy. Jim didn’t mind turning people into toys every once in a while or take up the role of one himself, but _Spock_ was none. Spock was precious. And Spock was dead. At least the young Spock.

The old Spock was here, here with Jim, trying to figure out what had happened to them. Another thing they had in common was none of them had felt even remotely close to death when their memory in the hospital ended.

Even before Jim’s arrival, Spock had meditated deeply about this place multiple times, sitting on the ground, out in the cold, and was convinced that this was not Earth. It was more like a place that seemed based on Earth, but dominated by conditions that were of supernatural nature.

During one of these intense meditations Spock had heard a call in his trance that was similar to the one his younger self had described to Jim and Bones: he felt like someone was trying to get a hold on his Katra, to reach for it, and pulling him. But it had been a single, blurred event which Spock now, after hearing about the sleep experiences of his other self, thought to be a hallucination, radiating from the dimension in which he and Jim were trapped. He had seemed sad as he had explained this conclusion to Jim. Maybe at first he had heard the old, _his_ Jim in this call.

How lonely must Spock have been in his first six weeks here? And now, in Jim’s company, he wasn’t off much better, as Jim noted bitterly. Yet still he didn’t feel fit to be a better exile companion then he already was.

Most of his time he spent on the green couch in the downstairs room of the log cabin providing them refuge. Next to it was a small, vintage bathroom and a bright chamber with a prehistoric looking sewing machine and massive amounts of different fabrics. They had electricity, water and functioning sanitary installations. The entire furnishing seems to date back to the time of Earth’s 1980s, at least Spock thought so, and they couldn’t find out where the sources of the electricity and the water were. All this was either deliberately nostalgic looking with mechanisms of an ingenuity behind which would even have impressed Scotty, or there were supernatural powers involved.

The latter assumption was supported by the thing about the plants. The common horsetail for example, with which Spock had treated Jim’s frostbite usually grew best on clayey, damp ground. On the upper floor there was a room with sacks full of soil, different types of seeds in bags and plant pots in different sizes. There even were heat lamps, and Spock had been able to grow some of the seeds, like tomatoes and legumes. The gain was scarce, but kept him from starving to death – both of them, because Spock persistently kept taking care that Jim ate something as well every now and then. In any case, the common horsetail – the only of the so far planted seeds usually not about to dwell in loose potting soil – grew in this room as if there was a price to win. As if someone behind everything here, was particularly fond of this plant. A someone who had equipped this place with everything humanoids needed to survive, even outdated manual toothbrushes and hard soap in the bathroom, but was expecting maximal initiative of their own.

But Jim had lost this initiative of his own, completely. He felt as if he had liquid lead flowing through his veins instead of red blood. Of course he answered whenever Spock asked him something. He also obeyed when Spock asked him to eat the harvested vegetables, even though it already was barely enough for himself. When Spock asked him to do so, he showered, cleaning himself with the hard soap of which they had countless pieces, and brushed his teeth with the crumbly, mint-like paste standing in a brown jar in the bathroom. They even could shave; there were several blades and a mirror with a bronze frame over the sink. Yet apart from food intake and hygiene Jim felt like being part of the green couch and kept staring at the ceiling or out of the window, beyond which it was almost constantly storming.

Spock had told him that he had explored their surroundings on days with calmer weather. He had walked in every direction, as far as his feet would carry him, into the scarce landscape as well as deep into the forest. Not once had he seen even a trace of life – aside from the high firs. A no man’s land under snow and ice.

They were stuck here.

God, they were prisoners.

And Jim’s thoughts went in circles, tormenting him. Spock was believed dead on New Vulcan, and therefore Jim as well, presumably, while the young Spock was truly gone, and Bones … alone. Bones had nobody who was a close enough friend to him so he would have someone to share his grief with. That was a Jim-and-Bones-thing, since they knew each other.

And there it was, for the first time in his life: a no-win scenario. Because Jim had no strength left in him. Because Spock hadn’t found any information in Jim’s mind that could have helped them.

Jim knew he was turning into a shame to himself, yet still had no energy to fight against his weakness. Hadn’t there been Spock, keeping him alive with gentle persistence – possibly Jim would have on day decided to lie down in the snow to sleep instead of the comfortable couch.

But Spock _was_. Spock grew plants that nourished them. Spock manufactured them clothes with crooked seams that made his eyebrows rise up unexpectedly high. Spock meditated out in the snow, in the never-ending hope to understand this place. And sometimes, Spock sat down on the couch close to Jim, a hand on his head, stroking his hair. As if magic came from Spock’s fingers, Jim felt secure in these moments – and too grateful to truly think about not wanting to be anymore.

 

‘How can I …’, he began, one evening, sensing the fire only through his closed eyelids and with Spock’s fingers on his temple. He couldn’t bring the sentence to an end. How can I give something back to you?, he had wanted to ask, how can I show you that your presence is precious to me, even though I am nothing anymore, am no one to be suitable company? Any goldfish would be a better friend than me.

The warm, gentle, raw voice’s answer was a single word: ‘Stay.’

Jim stumbled. Was Spock doubting that? That he would stay? Stay alive willingly? Stay – stay with _him_? Even though he was touching his head with his hands? Was it _that_ dark what Jim was radiating? ‘Of course’, he whispered hoarsely. ‘I promise.’

‘Thank you.’ Another lonely word out of Spock’s mouth, sounding so genuinely relieved that Jim shuddered out of shame over his behaviour.

He had to kick himself in the ass.

He had to.

And damn it, he would.

Slowly he sat up, carefully, to not free his hair too abruptly from Spock’s fingers. He cleared his throat, blinking at Spock whose eyes were resting on him as attentive as ever. ‘Uhm. That may come rather sudden now, but – would you like to show me how this sewing monster works? A man should learn how to design his own underwear.’

A raised eyebrow, paired with a slight smile. ‘So you think you will manage to produce straighter seams than I, Jim?’

Jim bent his head assessingly. ‘Not really, no. But your face, should I manage, would definitely be worth a try.’


	30. #30

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

There were darkness and emptiness. A void that didn’t have a name, followed by a thought. The knowledge of _being_.

It took him long to harmonise this knowledge within himself. Was it logical to _be_? If he was, than he also had to be _someone_.

Despite this vague consciousness everything remained dark and silent. It remained dark and silent for so long that he begun to get used to this state and wasn’t sure anymore if there ever had been anything else.

Bit by bit darkness and silence were fading. Sometimes there were images, then voices, and eventually he recognised enough of them to identify them as memories.

Memories … of himself.

Of course he was _someone_.

Spock.

He was _Spock_.

And he was … a Vulcan. No … a Half Vulcan, son of a human mother who … was no more.

Spock. Commander Spock. That he was.

And he was … asleep?

No.

He must not fall asleep. He would die should he fall asleep one more time. Leonard would not be able to help him anymore … He had fallen asleep!

But has was not dead. Had he been dead, he would have known. He had no logical explanation how he knew that, but he was sure of it.

Because … Jim would not have let it happen. Jim would not let him die, that was the last thing he remembered. On board the _Variance_? On the way to New Vulcan.

And Jim had … had …

Memories dissipated into something that was no longer darkness, but mist.

Mist … he had to go back! Before it was too late!

Back … from where?

A shape parted from the mist. A shape surrounding his consciousness. A body. _His_ body.

A bed. He was lying in a bed. It felt strange. Different than before.

Why was nobody shaking him to wake up if he apparently had fallen asleep again?

But had it not all been silent? He did not remember any of these calls that had kept trying to rip him out of his body whenever he fell asleep, and he felt no pain.

Had Leonard found a solution after all?

He had to ask him, he had to … ask Jim, when they would arrive, Jim had said it was only about half a day, a few hours, and … Jim had called something, and emotions had swept over him like he would never have thought possible, emotions that slipped from his grasp as he … he …

_‘You have to go back.’_

Spock opened his eyes wide.

At least he tried to do so. What felt like a sudden movement was not more than blinking. Light. There was light. Reflexively, he shut his eyes tight again.

‘Spock? Spock!”

A voice?

‘Hey, Spock, can you … do that again?’

He wanted to, he tried with all his strength, and … there. There were his eyes and his eyelids, obeying him flatteringly.

The light was no longer blinding, seemed dimmer. He arched his eyebrows trying to keep his eyes open, and then he felt something else.

A hand on his upper arm, squeezing it. It was shaking.

As he was still trying to discern anything in the blurred light, this hand on his arm helped him sense his own body.

There were his legs, his hands – and his head on a pillow. Something covered his mouth and nose, something, that bothered him and yet was at the moment still necessary.

‘Spock.’ Again the voice, and the hand, squeezing.

Leonard’s voice. And Leonard’s hand?

Leonard!

There was a shape bending over him. He could not recognise it clearly, but it had to be Leonard.

Leonard and … Jim? Why was Jim not there?

Spock wanted to ask Leonard, but there was the oxygen mask, and … his body did not obey him. What had happened? Was this even still the _Variance_? Or had he been sleeping through their arrival? He did not remember. He had not even been able to breathe. Now he was; the mask only aided him and took over when he stumbled.

Leonard, where is Jim? That he wanted to ask, but his eyes were already falling shut again, and he could not move. He could not even manage do turn his head to see Leonard better or survey the room. Neither his head nor his hands or any other part of his body obeyed him. Only his breath faltered, and the ventilator took over.

‘Easy, Spock.’ Leonard’s voice sounded strange. Why was it shaking, like the hand still holding Spock’s upper arm? ‘Can you … blink once more, if you can hear me? And understand me?’

A deliberate closing and opening of his eyes seemed to be a barely manageable effort to him. It took him several seconds before he succeeded in opening his eyes again, but Leonard seemed to understand him, as the pressure of his hand became stronger.

‘… od. Good.’ Why was Leonard talking so quietly? And so faintly? That was not his style.

‘If you do understand me, then simply keep breathing. Right now that’s the best thing to do. Then I can take off that mask soon. I don’t want anything more for the moment. You will need a bit of patience.’

Spock opened his eyes as widely as he could, but he could not focus on Leonard’s face. It remained a bright spot in front of a background Spock did not recognise. Nothing about his surroundings appeared to be familiar to him. Even the beeping of the machines was different.

They were no longer on board the _Variance_. Surely not.

Then … this was New Vulcan?

Had he been unconscious instead of asleep? For how long?

His eyes fell shut again, no matter how hard he fought against it, for he must not fall asleep, and he wanted to look at Leonard and get him to understand what he was waiting for: that Leonard finally went to get Jim, Jim, who … was where?

‘It’s alright’, Leonard murmured. ‘You can sleep. Nothing has happened these past days, when you’ve been almost waking up. Maybe …’ He stopped, and Spock was able to open his eyes one more time. Leonard had lowered his head and his hand vanished from Spock’s arm. ‘Maybe it’s really over, and you …’

The hand returned, sinking down on his shoulder.

‘Sleep, Spock. And when you wake up next time, it will be easier. It will take a few days, but soon you will be able to stay awake longer.’

Spock assumed he had been unconscious for several days. His body – why was it so heavy? He was in no pain at all, which was remarkable, but he had no strength whatsoever.

And his eyes – his eyes fell shut again for good. He had fought back sleep for weeks, but now he had no chance. His body took what it had been denied, and Spock concentrated on breathing, because that was everything left to him and there was nothing he wanted to do more than open his mouth to ask Leonard why he had not gone to get Jim.

The last thing Spock sensed, before he drifted out again, was Leonard’s hand, squeezing his shoulder, it’s shaking seeming to vibrate through Spock’s body, and he knew there was something he had forgotten, that he had to remember, and that something was wrong with Leonard.


	31. #31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're sorry for the delay. Translating had been on hiatus for a few weeks. But now it's going again, we're currently working on chapter 39. Chapter #32 due on tuesday!

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

Leonard was crying soundlessly. For minutes he couldn't take his hand off Spock's shoulder, and he didn't want to do that, take his hand off. It could stay there, should stay there, it was okay, for a while, yes, for a while it was okay.

Spock was now asleep. Nothing happened. Was it over? Was it truly and honestly over?

It almost felt like some supernatural entity had made a choice, as if it was mocking him: _I have changed my mind and taken Jim from you. Instead you now get Spock back. It was never the plan to leave them both with you, McCoy._

Aside from these stupid, paranoid mumbo jumbo thoughts there was a voice deep inside Leonard that demanded something entirely different from him: _Leonard, Spock is alive. He made it,_ you _made it. Jim needs to know. You have to tell him, do you hear me?_

Was he now going crazy for good? Nothing was _made_ here. Spock had woken up for a short time, yes, and he had understood Leonard's words and had been able to communicate with him through blinking. That was a first tendency, a positive one, but not to be overestimated.

And damn, there was no Jim anymore whom Leonard could have delivered the good news to. There was the crew and Ben, waiting for any news from him, yes, and of course he would call them, but here, here with him there was no one left to share the despite all uncertainty relieving news with.

No one was here to take part. He was alone and could continue crying. It was goddamn luck he was no longer accountable to Silak and his Goblin troup, that he didn't have to justify anything, because Sarek had taken care - Heavens!

Just how stupid as he?

Sarek! He could call Sarek, he _had_ to!

Spock's father had stepped down from most of his obligations as Ambassador, but of course he couldn't be present in his private home around the clock. And even though Leonard barely dared to assess him anymore: _Sarek_ would take part. Sarek was, in a way that humans and most likely even Spock himself couldn't fully grasp, very damn keen of his son. Sarek – would be glad.


	32. #32

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

Spocks _face_.

Spocks _eyebrows_ , rising up one after the other.

Spock's _look_ , full of honest astonishment and at the same time of something which could easily be described as displeasure.

Oh, he didn't like that Jim hat managed a perfectly straight seam with the ancient sewing machine at his first try. Fundamentally, there was nothing he would ever begrudge Jim, but _this_ strained his ego a bit.

'Well, I am a bit younger', Jim tried to understate his success while internally feasting on Spock's face. They had brought the sewing machine and a basket full of fabrics to the comfortable living room, and the light of the fire was quite charming to his facial expression. 'It's easier for my brain to wrap around stepping and sewing at the same time.'

Spock's brows almost vanished under his perfectly cut grey hair. This man managed to cut his hair with a simple blade after weeks of imprisonment more accurate than any barber could have done. The thing about the seams must bug him unimaginably, no matter how dignified he stood over most imaginable things. 'Well, this was one straight seam, Jim. I do not wish to discourage you, but the crafting of wearable clothes is another matter.'

'We'll see about that.' Jim grinned and reached for a light chrome yellow fabric. He knew about the psychological effect of the colour, and they could really use a little bit of cheering up. 'I have announced to design myself underwear, and I truly hope you'll keep track of my progress.'

'In this yellow?' Spock seemed sceptical, while his slight smirk returned.

'Why not? Yellow suits me', Jim stated.

'Well ...'

'I am listening?' Jim pressed on with playful severity. This began to give him a faint feeling of being alive.

Spock leaned back on his wooden chair, crossed his legs and waved his hand vaguely. A deeply human gesture, Jim thought. ‘This above all: to thine own self be true’, he eventually said. ‘And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.’

'Is that Shakespeare?' it escaped Jim, and with all his strength he pushed back the pain chewing on him and wanted to dig through his body. The picture of the young, the other Spock fought to rise up within him, but it mustn't if he wanted to outlast here.

'Yes, Jim.' Spock seemed to sense his change in mood, and Jim was glad when he added: 'and now we are about to see if you will show me my limits whilst sewing yellow underpants.'


	33. #33

**☆ Spock ☆**

 

A feeling of urgency drove Spock's consciousness to the surface. Was it the fourth or fifth time he was waking up? Over how many hours had that stretched? Or had it been days? One time he had opened his eyes and only seen twilight, until Leonard had switched on a lamp.

But now his sleep was broken by a restlessness that was creeping through his mind since his first awakening, a restlessness growing with every short waking state. This time he could open his eyes immediately, and he blinked up to a ceiling made of a bright red material, almost perfectly mimicking stone. Unmistakably of Vulcan style, but looking completely new: New Vulcan.

Spock blinked again, and for the first time his eyesight cleared up completely. He sensed his body, bit by bit he became aware of hands, feet, legs and arms. There was still beeping, but in rhythms that did not seem alarming to him, as far as he could judge - he was not sure he could judge anything right now.

Then someone bent over him.

'Spock.' This time he recognised Leonard's face clearly, and his restlessness grew unmeasurably high. He wanted to rise up, rip the oxygen mask from his face to ask what was going on, why Leonard did not go to get Jim. Jim, who could not be far, who would never have gone far, but Spock's body still did not obey him.

_Something was wrong._

Leonard's face seemed haggard from tiredness, he was unshaved and pale, and as he met Spock's eyes, his took on a look Spock did not want to understand. 'I know what you want to ask', Leonard said almost voicelessly. 'I see it in your face.'

Of course, and it seemed so absurd to Spock that Leonard thought it worthy of notice that he _wanted to know_ where Jim was, where he was the whole time, as everytime Spock had been been remotely close to being conscious, no one except Leonard had been in the room with him.

'You're breathing completely on your own right now', Leonard murmured. 'And I'd like to take the mask off to see whether you can do without. But ... first I have to ... I should explain so much to you, but ...' The next words came out of Leonard like something he was desperately trying to get rid off, something he did not want to speak out loud and yet needed to get over with. 'Shit, Spock, he's dead. Jim is dead.'

Spock's thoughts came to a sudden halt.

 _No_ , his lips formed under the mask. Jim was not dead. That could not be. He was not possibly ... Spock had thought him dead, for a moment, but then ... what?

He looked in Leonard's eyes, where his last words had left a void similar to the one opening up in Spock's head now and pulling every conviction that all this had to be an error into the deep.

 In every fibre of his mind it seemed illogical to Spock that Jim was dead, impossible, there was a certainty within him, assuring him of the opposite, but for _Leonard_ it was anything but illogical.

To Leonard it was a fact that Jim was dead, and while Spock was returning his gaze with wide open eyes, horror came. It came in waves, washing away his unexplainable certainty, leaving him helpless with the same fact Leonward was facing as well.

Leonard was not mistaken when he spoke about someone's death. When Leonard said something like this, he knew with certainty that it was the truth.

Jim was dead.

Jim.

Captain Kirk.

Dead.

Waves of horror kept washing over Spock, pressing him down, and yet his body did not seem willing to fall asleep again aleady. He was awake, unable to flee back into unconsciousness.

Vulcans suppressed their feelings from their early life on, until they could imagine having none. Until they could no longer sense them. Sometime between the night when the Ambassador had died and Spock had had the first of these _dreams_ , and right now he had lost the ability to suppress his emotions.

Vulcans who felt did so more intensely than humans. Regarding that, Spock had never felt more Vulcan than in this very moment. Shock, incomprehension, pain, disbelief, fury and other emotions were raining down on him, faster than he could grasp them.

Jim was dead, and Spock was at the mercy of everything that meant.

'Spock.' Leonard. Leonard was still with him. 'Keep breathing. Come on.'

Breathing. He had forgotten to do so, and it did not seem to matter to him. The machine was doing the work anyway, and for what?

He did not want to be awake.

Did not want to _be_.

Not be this naked being, almost drowning in emotions.

Jim.

Jim!

Had he not been ... there just moments before?

And he was ... There was so much Spock did not know, did not understand, he had to remember and that still would change nothing, because Leonard would never lie when it came to Jim's life, and Leonard had confirmed his death most likely himself, and ... Spock had to get rid of the mask and ask him!

Ask him what had happened, since when they were here, why _Jim_ was dead and not _he_ , Spock, when all logic in the world would make one believe the opposite was the case, as Spock knew he had had barely a chance of survival, while Jim had been in good physical health.

And still there was Leonard's face hovering over him. Time was passing relentlessly, empowering Jim's death to crawl into every corner of Spock's mind, until he thought his head was about to burst.

'Shit, Spock. I ... I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do. And no explanation. We know _nothing_.' Leonard's voice broke.

Spock was still staring at him, helpless, almost in panic, unable to grasp even one clear thought.

He felt dizzy, until he thought he was losing consciousness again, but no matter how much he wished for that to happen, he stayed awake. He simply stayed awake. Leonard's words passed by, like the fact that he took off the breathing mask of Spock's face and left his body ro do the work alone. And as Spock had to concentrate on breathing, his lips formed words, so pointless that it bordered absurdity to silently say them again and again, because his voice was still not obeying him: _It cannot be, it cannot be, it cannot be._

But no matter he thought about it, he could not think of a reason why it _could not be_.

For Leonard it could be, for Leonard it _was_ , and Leonard's truth was Spock's truth, because they both were in the same reality.

A reality where Jim Kirk was dead.


	34. #34

**☆** **Sarek** **☆**

 

‘I must ask you for your understanding, Commodore Paris. I cannot help you in this matter. It is Doctor McCoy’s decision alone.’

‘Naturally you are under no obligation regarding Doctor McCoy, Ambassador Sarek’, Paris assured him. ‘I don’t wish to impose on you, but the _Enterprise_ will be ready for take-off within less than a month, and as things are, I begin to assume she will need more than a new captain. That’s why I’m obligated in the name of the admiralty to ask you about Commander Spock’s condition.’

‘He is recovering’, Sarek let Paris know. ‘But it is impossible that he will be able to return to duty within a month.’

After he had bid goodbye to Commodore Paris and ended the call, Sarek remained in his conference room and watched the dark screen.

He had told Paris only part of the truth. He doubted that Spock had even the slightest thought left for the future of the _Enterprise_ right now, just as he was sure that McCoy, as he had come to know him, had no intention on taking his duty up again, as long as Spock had not fully recovered and was ready to do the same, something that was not to be reckoned with within the next weeks, maybe months.

Sarek left the conference room and went on his way to Spock’s room.

There, the picture had changed. Since Spock had been awake long enough for Doctor McCoy to tell him about Jim Kirk’s death two days ago, he was awake for several hours a day.

The relief about that, however, was dampened by the fact that said message had hit Spock on a level that Sarek could not yet grasp, most likely just like Spock himself.

He had not spoken so far and only communicated through blinking and slight movements of his head. During the day he was breathing without any aid through the machine; only at night Doctor McCoy hooked him up again so his respiratory system could recover.

Now he was looking at Sarek, an alert look in his eyes, and yet it seemed as if part of him was not here. Part of him could not accept Jim Kirk’s death, seemed to want to deny it again and again.

Doctor McCoy was sitting in a chair next to the bed.

Concerning him, Sarek was still unsure whether he had made the right choice when he had shifted Spock from the hospital to his private home. Doctor McCoy had fully supported him in this, but still it seemed unfair in Sarek’s eyes. McCoy could barely leave Spock’s room, did not sleep much and presumably not good, as he always had to be prepared for Spock’s condition to deteriorate.

For Spock on the other hand it would have been unbearable at this point in time to be surrounded by foreign doctors, that much was clear to Sarek.

The best news still was that sleep did no longer seem to post a threat to Spock. Of whatever kind his problems had been – at the moment they were gone without a trace, and thus Sarek had refrained from bringing up the topic so far.

He was deeply reluctant to burden the both of them with it, but it would not get them any further to ignore the fact that they had no idea what had actually happened to Spock.

Sarek nodded towards Doctor McCoy and stopped at the lower end of Spock’s bed, from where the latter could see him well. Doctor McCoy’s appearance began to concern him. ‘My intention had originally been to ask you whether you are interested in an attempt to detect the reason for your voyage here’, he explained to Spock. ‘In this case, I would contact Doctor T’Lenn once more.’

Spock’s eyes widened, and the shaking his head was the most distinct movement of the past two days. _No_ , his mouth formed, before he turned his head away to stare at the wall.

Sarek turned to Doctor McCoy. ‘At the moment I would like to postpone that. Doctor; I am grateful for everything you are doing, but I do not wish for you to harm yourself in the process. You need sleep.’

The Doctor opened his mouth, but Sarek pre-empted him: ‘I must insist. I have no more obligations left today so I can stay here while you get some rest. The room next door has been prepared ever since before your arrival on New Vulcan.’

Doctor McCoy pressed his lips together, before he looked at Spock and blinked in surprise.

The latter had turned his head towards him and looked at him, for a moment thoroughly attentive. His eyes went from the door to McCoy and back, before he presaged a nod.

‘…eep, ‘nard.’

The words were barely understandable, more breathing out than speaking, but paired with Spock’s repeated nod their meaning was obvious.

Doctor McCoy hesitated for minutes during which he did not turn away his eyes from Spock and the biofunction monitors, whose screens did show no reason for concern. Aside from still being extremely weak and having massively lost muscle mass, Spock’s bodily functions were stable and good, relatively to his physical condition.

‘Three hours’, Doctor McCoy eventually said and fixated Sarek with an almost threatening look. ‘You stay here, and you call for me at the slightest change, alright?’

Under different circumstances Sarek might have been bewildered to receive commands in such a tone, but now he nodded as if it was perfectly normal for him to accept orders from Doctor McCoy.

‘Might be best if you even call me should he fall asleep.’ McCoy watched Spock again. ‘Just keep breathing like you’ve been until now, then nothing will happen. I’d put the mask back on for as long as I am gone, but that’d be paranoid, you can do this without.’

Spock gave a slight nod.

After Doctor McCoy had left the room, Sarek took over his place in the chair.

‘I do not wish to claim to be the right person to offer you support, but rest assured I am willing to give it, should you wish for me to do so.’

To a human, these words might have seemed cold and uninterested, but based on Spock’s look, Sarek noticed that he understood how they were meant to sound.

Emotions darted over Spock’s face, emotions overwhelming him since he heard about Jim Kirk’s death, and Sarek recognised that Spock, who had tried his whole life to be more Vulcan than Human, was now unable to cope with said feelings in either a Vulcan or a Human way.

While Spock was turning his head to the wall again, lips pressed together, Sarek realized that he might not even be able to help Spock should he allow it. And that there were more than medical reasons for McCoy to not leave Spock’s side willingly.


	35. #35

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

Once James Tiberius Kirk was determined to learn a skill, he practised hard until the goal was achieved. Giving up was not an option. The only option was hard work with full concentration.

So it came that Jim managed to craft warm, sturdy winter coats for Spock and himself with the ancient sewing machine within three days. Surely his creations wouldn’t have impressed a fashion designer, and every remotely fashion-conscious person would have thrown them screaming into the fire. The clothes had very visibly been made by an unexperienced person, and not every seam was so clean that it was suited to boast about in front of Spock. But they were hardwearing and would keep them both warm, much better than Spock’s initial coat attempts.

The latter kept watching Jim’s borderline obsessed eagerness with a mix of goodwill and concern. Seeing that Jim had managed to come out of his lethargy undoubtedly relieved him. But that he allowed himself almost no sleep anymore and additionally even forgot to drink without constant reminder, Spock considered being highly unhealthy, what he told Jim without hesitating (and without success).

Still he showed Jim clearly that he was glad about his fast progress. The durable clothes Jim produced made it easier for him to meditate in the snow, something he didn’t want to give up in any case. Sometime, so he was hoping, he _would_ succeed in sensing information about this place in trance.

Now that Jim was prepared for the rarely stopping snowstorm, he noticed that there were numerous logs of wood behind the house that had to be chipped with an axe so they could be used for the fireplace. The thought that Spock had done this work on his own until now, while Jim had been wallowing in self-pity on the couch deeply shamed him. No matter how strong Spock as a Half Vulcan was: This man was one hundred and sixty years old! Jim would have preferred to talk him out of meditating outside as well, as it was obvious that the temperature outside did not agree with Spock at all, but such dictation didn’t appertain to him. Spock knew what he was doing. Always.

It made more sense for him to be useful whenever he could. On the fourth day he was consciously participating in life again, he chipped tons of wood which he piled up in the living room and in the slipstream of the house. After a thorough shower – again ashamed concerning his former inactivity he remembered the Vulcan sense of smell – he cleaned the bathroom with a washcloth and then the entire living room. Finally, he got accustomed to the ancient washing machine, looking like a mixture between a freezer and a fish tank, and loaded it with used clothing and a piece of soap, hoping the fabrics and seams would withstand the washing programme he had chosen.

After all that was done, Jim felt true hunger and thirst, for the first time since he had arrived in this dimension. The consequences of that were that he became aware of how little food he and Spock actually had. A few tomatoes, legumes, puny Orion grapes and common horsetail. That was everything that was growing in the room in the upper floor so far, and it had been barely enough to feed Spock. At least the plants tasted fresh and aromatic; they needed neither salt nor pepper, though both were to be found in the kitchenette. A circumstance that seemed to make Spock thoughtful as Jim spoke it out.

‘Isn’t that a good thing?’ he asked, confused.

‘It is.’ Spock smiled at him, yet his thoughtfulness didn’t leave his face. ‘I have noticed the special flavour of these plants as well, ever since my first harvest.’

‘But?’ Jim took his fork down. In this cabin there was everything, really _everything_ to lead a life full of deprivation, but one of dignity and civilization. And Good Lord, _he liked vegetables_.

Spock seemed to consider his answer thoroughly, pulling the sentences back and forth in his head, before beginning cautiously: ‘In the year 2267 of my original timeline the _Enterprise_ discovered a planet called Gothos. It was about nine hundred lightyears away from earth, in the quadrant 904, and Jim – Jim vanished, just as Lieutenant Sulu, abducted to this planet in front of all our eyes. Later we were to find out Gothos had been created artificially.’

‘By whom?’ Jim laid his fork down on his plate, sensing this was about something important. In addition, it was smarter to stretch his last portion of food for the day over a few hours.

Again Spock seemed deeply contemplative. ‘If you allow it, I would prefer the mental way to the verbal’, he said.

‘Sure.’ Jim nodded, moving his chair closer to Spock, feeling his fingers on his face – and his body was flooded with adrenaline by the story of Trelane, member of an omnipotent incorporeal species, who was fooling the crew of the _Enterprise_ and possibly would have killed Jim’s older counterpart.

 

At first, Jim stiffened up as he heard Spock’s voice after all this information – not auditory, but mental. In his head.

_Jim. You certainly understand why I have not told you about these thoughts of mine so far._

Jim swallowed, but relaxed a bit. _Yes_. He formed words in his mind, forcing himself to recreate his own voice while doing so. Crap, that felt strange.

A laugh. There was a laugh sinking into his head! _You are doing great_ , he then heard from Spock. The words sounded sincere.

 _Thanks_. Jim felt the corners of his mouth twitch. For some reason, Spock’s compliment quickened his pulse. _Okay, but this theory is flawed, isn’t it? There is no entity showing up to us, and all this here is – real. The food has taste, the snow causes frostbite, and nobody has thought Hikaru and my other self dead after Trelane had brought them to his planet._

 _Even so_ , Spock answered. _Just as Trelane’s way of transporting our bodies did not have any painful side effects. Nevertheless I have repeatedly thought that we both together in this place could be … amusing. For someone unable to sympathize with our desire for our own reality and someone looking for entertainment._

Jim breathed in sharply. _That makes sense. That makes damn fucking sense, Spock. I, uh, fuck. No. Shit, sorry._

Again there was Spock’s mental laugh, soft and worm. _Not for this, Jim. There are more important things than your not always socially acceptable parlance._

Now it was Jim’s turn to laugh, he couldn’t prevent it, and because he had no idea how to turn real laughter into a mental one, he was struggling to suppress his snorting. _What do you mean_ , he asked mentally after he had recovered himself, _would it make more sense now for us to be absolutely boring or to give our potential stalker a little show?_

 _I do not know, Jim_ , promptly came the answer. This was a trait on Spock Jim likes very much: his absolutely Unvulcan acceptance of the fact that he was not inherently smarter than everyone else. _We cannot even assume for sure that any of these varieties will lead to more clarity. We do not have another option than to try out both. And to wait for something around us to change._

 _Let’s do it._  At one dash Jim was full of thirst for action. _I’ve got a surprise for you anyway. But I’m going to need a few days longer for it, so it would be cool if we could start with the boring part._

 _A surprise?_ Spock went into it, and a warm feeling trickled through Jim’s chest. How Human he was! How curious! Despite all this crap here. There was a lot he could still learn from Spock.

 _A surprise_ , he confirmed. _But please don’t even try to imagine what it could be. A surprise is a surprise._

 _Fair enough_ , Spock answered, and with him Jim could be absolutely sure that he would hold up to this. He would not exploit the fact that they were mentally linked right now – not to get behind a small secret or concerning bigger things. Spock simply didn’t _do_ something like that, and most of all he stuck to what he said. _I will limit myself to bore you during the next days._

Again Jim laughed, and he was amazed how the sound found its way to the mental level almost on its own. _I can barely wait._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and commenting!  
> We know this si very confusing right now, but as Spock Prime and Jim might be getting closer to some answers, we are too. Be patient, there are 90 more chapters to go!


	36. #36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are terribly sorry or the ridiculously long wait. Unfortunately, translatung has been on hiatus for five weeks now so updates are going to come irregulary for the next weeks, as one of us (the one who's doing the translating and posting) is currently writing another fic that's taking up all her time.  
> So sorry! We promise this is going to be completed, really!

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

Spock opened his eyes. Something was different, without him being sure what exactly. Only as he turned his head to look for Leonard in the dimly lit room he noticed what was confusing him so much: The oxygen mask was gone.

Had Leonard taken it off again while he had been asleep because he had thought he could abbreviate the periods during which Spock received support from the machine? Had he even put it on?

Spock tried to remember when he had last been awake.

His father had been with him, after Leonard had retired to go to sleep and … when had Leonard returned? Had he even still noticed that?

Spock was not sure; maybe he had fallen asleep, whereupon Sarek had woken Leonard just as he had wanted him to.

A part of Spock did not care. This part was still trying to understand how it could be _possible_ that Jim was dead, because it simply was not …

But the other part, the one knowing perfectly well that nothing would bring back Jim, was now watching Leonard, lying on the bed at the wall, under the window, beyond which Spock saw a dark night sky.

Leonard appeared to be asleep. It was the first time Spock saw him sleeping. Up until now, everytime Spock had woken up he had been at his side before he even had been able to orientate.

He blinked. It was endlessly hard for him to concentrate on something for long periods of time, because within seconds there was a feeling of indifference towards the here and now trying to overcome him.

Pain, horror and a growing fury were clouding every clear thought he tried to grasp. They were digging through his head, through his lungs and his intestines, until he almost wanted to ask Leonard for pain medication, had he not known his agony was no longer of physical origin.

Spock was watching Leonard and the night sky, which was showing a yellowish moon, one of the most distinct differences between New Vulcan and Vulcan.

It was still dark when Leonard woke up with a start and sat up. He rubbed his eyes and whispered something Spock thought was a curse. Every single of his movements seemed forced, almost mechanic, like he was a badly programmed humanoid robot.

For three weeks and two and a half days they were on New Vulcan. For three weeks and two and a half days Jim had been …

Spock had first opened his eyes five days ago. He had no memories of their arrival and just as little of their last two to three days in board the _Variance_. This bothered him, bothered him unbelievably, and it _unsettled_ him, because he knew he _had_ to remember things that had happened during this time, without being able to explain why this was the case.

‘Crap.’ Leonard’s voice rose him out of his thoughts.

The lighting was increased and Leonard stopped as he noticed Spock was awake. ‘Have you been awake for long?’

Spock shook his head and opened his mouth. He had to talk to Leonard. He needed to finally …

Leonard came closer. ‘I should not have fallen asleep. Damn, next time I’ll remain on the chair, so at least I’ll notice when I fall down.’

Spock frowned. Leonard could not …

‘ … No.’ It was hard, endlessly hard to form words. Barely a sound came out of his throat. But … ‘You … ve … sleep.’

Leonard took a shaking breath. ‘No. I don’t have to sleep after determining in between to let you sleep the whole night without the mask. How did you feel with that?’

Spock took a breath before nodding towards Leonard. ‘Haven’ … no’iced.’

‘You haven’t even really noticed? Alright, then we can let the thing stay off.’ Leonard tapped on the monitors. ‘Then we can talk how to continue from here. How much can you move?’

Spock closed his eyes. So far his body was barely obeying him. He felt every part of it, but his muscles refused to work. It was an effort to even turn his head.

Leonard put on a pair of gloves. ‘Try to swallow, will you?’ he asked and laid his hand under Spock’s chin.

It took Spock minutes to bring the moves to his mind and do it.

Leonard drew his hand back. ‘I will move the bed up a bit and then you’ll try to drink something. Afterwards it’ll be easier for you to speak.’

Spock left it to Leonard to decide what was sensible. It was good to finally see the whole room with an elevated upper body, and his circulatory systems took his new pose good enough for Leonard to hold a cup of water with a straw to his mouth.

‘I can try and applicate it directly in your mouth with a syringe, but try it this way first’, Leonard asked.

Spock’s need to tell Leonard everything that was burning on his tongue won over his unwilling body, and he drank several swallows before Leonard took the cup away.

He cleared his throat. He was almost about to fall asleep again. It had grown significantly brighter in front of the window, but he could not be awake a full hour. ‘Leonard, I …’

Images were drifting through his mind, images of Jim bringing him tea because his voice had been so hoarse, on the _Variance_ , back … way back, as if it had been years.

Even three days with the knowledge of Jim’s death were piling up in Spock’s head like years, and he felt dizzy imagining the future, aeons he would still have to live, alone …

‘Spock’, a voice reminded him that he was not the only one who was alone. Leonard bent over him, looking him searchingly into the eyes. ‘Your circulation seems good, but if you feel dizzy, give me a sign, then I’ll lower the bed again.’

‘No’, Spock managed.

Jim was gone, Spock was alone, just as Leonard was.

‘It is my fault.’ The one thought, so present within his mind he would have preferred to scream it out loud.

Leonard stopped and stared at him. ‘Shit, Spock. No. It’s not. Nothing is your fault.’

Spock felt his face slip to show things he did not even want to reveal to himself.

‘It is, Leonard. We would have had so much more time, if I … I have done everything wrong.’

Leonard pressed his eyes shut and shook his head. ‘Spock, please. If I truly believed that there’s only the slightest bit of guilt, if I thought any of this crap was your fault, then … I wouldn’t be here. I haven’t stayed because I am the only doctor in the galaxy who could have pulled you through. If I would consider you guilty even one bit of Jim’s … then I would have left you with the pointy-eared doctors in the hospital and were back on Yorktown for a week to get myself a new captain and a new first officer.’

Spock could barely understand Leonard, as he seemed to be choking in his words, and he could see dampness glittering in Leonard’s eyes.

Leonard had stayed. Because of Spock. For Spock.

Despite everything.

‘Why, Leonard?’ he asked, silently, not only because he would not have been able to speak louder at all. ‘Despite everything … here … alone?’

Leonard cast him a look mirroring Spock’s own despair in a way that shot like a knife through his head.

‘Alone, Spock? That … might be up to you.’

Alone. Both of them.

But …

The sound and the meaning of Leonard’s words reached Spock at different times. His brain seemed incapable of completely comprehending what Leonard was saying, what he _wanted_ to say with it. Spock bit his lips, clenched his fists. His fists … _now_ his hands did obey him. Now his fingers were moving as a new wave of horror, of realizing, combined with pure self-hatred flared up in his eyes and he was unable to do _anything_ against it.

Jim was dead, they were alone, and yet Spock’s despair was Leonard’s as well. At least in that concern they were not entirely lonely.


	37. #37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We are very sorry for the delay!  
> Since the last update, Cosmi (who is doing the translating and posting here) has written an 80k fic that left her no time at all for even thinking about posting here.  
> But now, we should manage to return to a weekly posting schedule. Hopefully. Haha.

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

For an entire day, Jim and Spock had remained silent. They hadn’t exchanged even a single word, quietly agreeing to not even look at each other, and there had been no mental conversation between either. _If_ they were being watched, they were well aware that this kind of communication would have been recognized as such, and secret communication most likely wasn’t suitable to be boring to anyone.

Jim had spent many hours in the unheated, yet undisturbed sewing room, working on his surprise. He actually felt a bit silly in his eagerness: he was crafting something thoroughly stupid, to do something thoroughly stupid, to – yes, that was all that was about – witness once more this special look that Spock showed when something highly astounded him. If that something caused dislike or amusement didn’t really matter, it just had to be absolutely unexpected, and it was _hard_ to astound Spock.

The beginning of the night felt the strangest after all the silence.

There was neither a sleeping room nor beds in the cabin, only the comfortable green couch in the living room which was a bit too small to be used by two men at the same time, but when Spock was lying on the couch itself and Jim on the recamier, his torso slightly bent, like he slept most of the time anyway, it worked. When they moved, their heads sometimes touched, but that was okay. Jim had slept much worse before.

They had lain like that, each on his side that evening, without quietly talking in the dark like they usually did, and in the silence Jim had felt his growling stomach so much he had been embarrassed about it. Did Vulcan stomachs never growl? That was not fair.

Involuntarily, Jim pictured all imaginable foods in the galaxy he knew. He thought of burgers, of pizza, of blueberry muffins, roast meat of all kind, sweet Orion fruits, chocolate and a thousand other things. And of steaks, so intensely it hurt – because suddenly Bones’ face appeared in front of his inner eye, because he heard Bones’ voice: ‘Come on, my steak is getting cold. And for Heaven’s sake, get yourself one too, I won’t share mine with you, Jim.’

His throat hurt. His shoulders were shaking. To think of Bones was as cruel as to think of Spock, the younger Spock, because Bones wasn’t dead, but still lost for Jim. And lost for himself, without Jim, without Spock, all on his own, and he would have to serve under a new captain and a new first officer and probably would need years to find new close friends. To be able to _bear_ new close friends. That was how Bones worked. Jim hoped with all his soul for Hikaru to be promoted to be captain of the _Enterprise_. He had earned it, and he was a good friend. As was Ben. Bones got along well with Ben, seriously, not just superficially.

Somehow he managed to only cry internally. To not let anything get out except the shaking of his shoulders. Even tears could be fascinating, and the motto was boredom.

But Spock, Spock hat noticed the movement, and for a few seconds Jim felt Spock’s finger in his hair.

Strangely comforted he felt something in his chest settle down, and some time later – maybe half an hour – he finally fell asleep.

The next morning started off unusually dark. As if someone had pulled out the drapes in front of the windows – but there weren’t any drapes on the windows in the cabin.

Jim sat up. Something was wrong. He noticed that Spock had already gotten up. With arms crossed behind his back he stood next to the table and looked at – what the devil _was_ that?

Jim got up and stepped up next to Spock, limbs still slightly stiff, and rubbed his eyes. Both windows to the left and right of the table were smudged with a strange substance, letting almost no light fall into the room. Grey-green with white spots. That was – man. That looked like bird droppings! ‘Any ideas concerning that?’ he asked, bewildered.

‘Well, Jim’, Spock answered calmly. ‘I would say these are quite shitty prospects.’

‘You …’ After being quite baffled at first due to the unusual choice of words for Spock, Jim began to laugh, but stopped rather quickly. ‘Well, yes. But if I have to be honest I had hoped for something more helpful.’

‘I understand.’ Spock gave him this special smile. ‘How about the following: should these excrements originate from an animal belonging to the class of birds or reptiles, and if this animal lays eggs, this could significantly improve our situation concerning food.’ He touched Jim’s face without asking his permission, and as far as Jim was involved, this was no longer necessary. _It appears someone has sent us a present._

Half fascinated, half disgusted, Jim regarded the dirty windows. _This someone has to learn a lot about appropriate presents_ , he answered mentally.

However, their boring time was over after only one day. What mattered now was to get to know their potential egg supplier – and to find new ways to communicate with the being who was apparently watching them closely.


	38. #38

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

‘You have to go back. I will never call for you again.”

Light. Mist.

‘He isn’t dead. I’d know if he were.’

A feeling. He was surrounded. The ambassador … he was gone. And Jim … Jim was also gone.

But he, he had to go back … had to …

 

‘SPOCK!’

Hands grabbed his shoulders, shaking him.

Spock opened his eyes wide, took a rattling breath and looked at Leonard’s panic-stricken face.

‘Spock! Damn, no!’

Spock was panting like he had run a sprint. He wanted to sit up but could not even lift his head.

Leonard helped him to turn to his side so he could breathe easier, then he reached out for the ventilating machine next to the bed and switched it on.

‘Don’t’, Spock gasped. ‘It is alright.’

Leonard stopped and looked at him closely, a horror in his eyes that crawled under Spock’s skin. ‘Are you okay?’

Spock nodded. ‘I believe I am.’

He was still breathing too fast and he heard the monitor beep alarmingly due do his rapid pulse.

But he was able to breathe. And …

‘It’s starting again’, Leonard mouthed. ‘It’s starting again, isn’t it?’

Spock needed a moment before he understood what Leonard meant. His warm was trembling as he carefully extended his hand to take the oxygen mask out of Leonard’s hand and laid it down on the mattress. ‘It is not’, he whispered. ‘It is over. I … nothing is going to happen to me anymore.’

Leonard supported himself with both hands on the mattress. ‘How … how do you know that, Spock? And … what was that just now? I was watching you, your pulse quickened, your breathing became frantic, that hasn’t happened, not since … so I thought I had to wake you up before …’ He had gotten slower and slower again before stopping to speak at all, his voice full of the same horror Spock had recognized in his eys.

What was … what?

Spock tried to get hold of the memory of this – dream?, but it was fleeting and suddenly he did not even positively know whether ha really _had_ been dreaming. But …

‘I do not know, Leonard. But I do know that whatever did harm me … it has stopped. It will not return. I am sure of it.’ He opened his mouth, wanting to say something else, and closed it again as the previous week came back to him, hitting him deep into his bones. Jim was still dead, however strongly a part of him refused to acknowledge the fact. Yet he was almost as sure Jim _could_ not be dead as he was sure nothing would attack him in his sleep again to take him with it.

He could not voice how wrong Jim’s death felt. Not again. Not in front of Leonard, who was still visibly fighting for composure.

Spock waited. He did not know what words to use to convince Leonard he was in no danger. The knowledge was within his mind and its source out of his reach at this point in time.

No sooner than after Spock’s pulse and breathing had settled down again Leonard took away his eyes from the monitors. ‘Are you sure? You … feel alright?’

Spock met his gaze. ‘No. I do not, Leonard. But I am in no danger.’

The way Leonard exhaled showed his relief. ‘Do you have even the slightest idea about _why_ you’re so sure this mess is truly over?’

Spock lifted his shoulders, which made his muscles ache yet felt infinitely relieving now that he _could_ move again. ‘I cannot remember. But I should do so. It is important. I …’ Whatever it was that he had wanted to say, the words fled his mind and he looked helplessly at Leonard.

‘Okay.’ Leonard breathed audibly. ‘Spock, maybe we should ask your father to contact T’Lenn after all. This … this beats me. What could be going on here. I have no clue, as well as you, but we should know what happened.’

It would not have been easy for Spock to put into words how much he resented the thought of letting anyone, even a professional medical telepath into his mind. He could not have said why, but something inside him deeply opposed an examination of his subconscious. It was not certain whether Doctor T’Lenn would be able to find out things currently hidden to Spock himself, but the possibility existed.

He _had_ to remember, he was aware of that, and the feeling had multiplied since the prior evening.

Additionally, he must try and learn to control his mental processes again. So far, he had not dreamt even though he did not even remotely succeed to meditate. Probably because his body and mind were still too exhausted. But now as he slowly became stronger, he would dream if he could not meditate to consciously process all stimuli he was faced with during the day.

At the same time he feared it more than he was willing to admit to evoke all the thoughts and emotions that haunted and bore down on him.

‘Spock?’ Leonard asked when he did not answer.

With some struggle Spock lifted his head from the pillow. He was no longer in danger, but he still had no strength.

‘Doctor T’Lenn shall try to find out something’, he gave in, forcing down his reluctance.

Leonard sighed. ‘Yes. It’s necessary.’

Spock closed his eyes. He did not want this. Apathy was still lingering about him like a shadow. But they needed to know. Both of them. And even if it was only to comprehend _what_ had happened and to … what? To get a close to all this? This thought awoke a feeling in him he had never knew before: Bitterness.

He looked up to Leonard. ‘Tomorrow. It is the middle of the night. Have you even slept so far?’

Leonard’s eyes clearly said no. He hesitated before crossing his arms. ‘Spock, can we make a deal? I will sleep a few hours and you’ll finally eat something tomorrow?’


	39. #39

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

He fell, like a tree falls. A young tree that had been drying for too long, after one single, well-aimed blow of an axe. But he, he wasn’t young anymore. Without the slightest sound he collapsed to the side.

Jim was standing next to him at the kitchenette, helping Spock preparing tea from dried leaves of common horsetail. They needed to warm themselves up, from the inside. Within seconds Jim’s pulse had sprang up until he felt the blood ringing in his ears, and only slowly he grasped that he had caught Spock. He hadn’t fallen. He was here, here in his arms, and Jim hold on to him tighter than it was appropriate. ‘Spock!’ he puffed out, stunned.

‘Excuse me, Jim.’ That was the first thing Spock murmured after he was standing straight again, one hand on Jim’s upper arm, the other at the kitchen table.

‘No.’ Jim gasped for air. He didn’t dare let go of Spock, and his heart was still hammering from – fear. ‘I mean, you really don’t need to apologize for this. Absolutely not.’

Spock freed himself yet allowed Jim to continue holding him. He gave him a soft smile that seemed to hold all calm in the universe. ‘I scared you. I am sorry about that.’

‘You – I – no. It’s not your fault, after all.’ Jim fought for similar calm and failed miserably. ‘Come’, he said with his voice frail, laid his arm around Spock’s waist as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘You lie down and I’ll make tea, okay?’

‘Jim, I am …’

‘Completely functional?’ Jim snorted. He knew that one. He knew it all too well and to speak out the words felt as if someone was slicing through his chest with a knife. And it made him angry. The pain made him angry and for a second he felt the wish to hurt Spock.

‘Very old’, Spock answered softly. ‘That is what I intended to say. I am very old for someone whose expectation of life no one ever dared to prognosticate. There is not always a specific cause why sometimes happens what has happened just now.’

The anger vanished as suddenly as it had come. What remained was a warm, tender feeling and unending fear. ‘Still you’re going to lie down now’, he forced out with a firm voice. ‘I’ll make tea. And then you’ll tell me why you’ve been at Doctor Silak’s back on New Vulcan. You said he wanted you to undergo cardiac treatment. And I haven’t asked so far about that because ... because … it was too close.’ He closed his eyes for a moment.

Too close, too close to Spock’s death, the death of the other Spock, the younger Spock, who he had called _his_ Spock, something he shouldn’t have done, because Spock had never belonged to him. He had not wanted to be _Jim’s_ Spock, had, after short moments of closeness, always sought times of distance, and that had been his right. He was no toy. Hadn’t been.

Spock, the Spock from the here and now, now did something that only could be described with one word: _Unspocky_. He gently, barely palpable leaned on Jim. Allowed Jim to support him. And without further discussion he allowed himself to be led to the couch where he lied down obediently and remained silent, until Jim returned to him with two cups of tea.

‘Spock, we will now make a deal’, Jim said and put down the steaming cups on the wooden table. ‘You won’t climb on trees again and you won’t jump from trees. I don’t allow that. Alright?’

Carefully, Spock sat up and again allowed Jim to gently support his back. But what he then said, smiling, felt like a slap in the face: ‘Yes, Captain. Except when you are hanging on to a rope you have thrown over the neck of a chicken the size of a grizzly bear and are in danger of being dragged through the entire forest and getting hurt in the process. In that case I would much prefer to rescue you.’

Involuntarily, Jim moved away from Spock a bit. He felt tears burning in his eyes, even before he became aware how deeply these words hurt him.

Yes, it had been stupid to try and catch the giant bird this way. But they had needed it unharmed, and with the peas as a bait they couldn’t lure the animal closer. In the sewing room were ropes of different strength, and after practising half a day with tree stumps, Jim had managed to get the chicken with a toss of the rope.

Spock hadn’t thought much of the method and of course had been proven right: the previously tranquil animal had started to run through the forest, screaming in panic – and because Jim had refused to let go of the rope there now was barely a part of his body that wasn’t full of bumps and bruises. Most likely he would have looked even worse had Spock not eventually sprung down from a fir tree onto the chicken to stun it with a Vulcan nerve pinch. But this wasn’t about that now. This was about Spock –

‘Okay’, Jim managed almost inaudible. ‘If we’re on _that_ level now I’ll better go look after the chicken. It needs a shed or it will freeze to death.’

‘Jim.’ Spock’s eyes seemed alert and – shocked? ‘My jokes do not appear to be exceptionally funny.’

Jim had already gotten up, stopped, and slowly sank back on to the couch. Damn. It had been a joke. A joke, because he had ordered Spock around before. But he wasn’t Spock’s captain. Had never been. Not to _this_ Spock. ‘Not right now’, he answered, lips trembling, and suddenly his own knees were the most fascinating sight in the world. ‘But I guess that’s because I don’t get any jokes concerning _that_. I’m making a fool of myself. I’m sorry.’ He harshly wiped the tears from his eyes.

‘You cannot make a fool of yourself, Jim. Not in front of me. And I will refrain from joking about this matter in the future.’

Hesitantly, Jim nodded. ‘And I won’t catch chicken with ropes anymore so you won’t have to climb trees anymore.’

Spock smiled again, sat up very straight and took up his cup. ‘Then we have come to an agreement, can drink our tee and I will explain to you everything you wish to know.’

Again, Jim felt his pulse spring up. ‘Yes’, he answered anyways. ‘Please.’

‘Essentially’, Spock thoughtfully said after taking a sip of his tea, ‘it is rather easy. My whole life I have physically been more Vulcan than Human. Now, as I am continually aging, my heart seems wish to approach a more human rhythm. I can accept that. In fact I am capable of taking some pleasure in the deceleration this circumstance demands of me. Doctor Silak on the other hand …’

‘… only likes perfect Vulcans’, Jim ended the sentence as Spock hesitated.

Spock laughed softly. ‘Exactly. He has developed a new kind of healing trance of which he things very much and that, if one is inclined to believe him, could even slow down natural aging processes.’

‘But you didn’t want that’, Jim breathed.

‘No, Jim’, Spock answered honestly.

‘I think I understand that.’ Jim swallowed hard. ‘But Spock, all this. Everything here. That’s the opposite of deceleration. Why haven’t you said anything? You should have kicked my ass when I didn’t do anything except lying around on the couch, howling at the moon.’

‘Everything has its own time.’ Spock extended his hand to place it on Jim’s shoulder. ‘That was your time to understand.’

‘If something happened to you because I was a melodramatic bum, wallowing in self-pity, this would now be my time to hate myself.’ Jim remained completely calm at the words, but he was dead serious.

Spock nodded slightly. ‘Forgive me. I should have been honest with you.’

‘I’ll forgive you if you promise to be honest from now on. And if you’ll let me do all – you listen, _all_ – stressful things here. I’m not your captain, you’re right on that one, and I don’t want to be. I want – to be your friend. And that means now I am the one to chop wood, carry things around or going out for longer periods of time. Spock, with all due respect to your meditation – it’s simply too cold out there for that. And fuck, I really have to check on the chicken now. It has to move until the shed is ready. Shit, I’ve never built a shed for a brute like this. Okay, I’ve never built a shed at all. But I’ll try to hurry. I got an axe, a saw, nails, a hammer – I’ll manage.’

Spock seemed to accept Jim’s announcement, but his face once again showed deep thoughtfulness. ‘If the chicken already had a shed’, he then said in a regretful tone, ‘just as we have this house, you would not need to remain outside for hours on your own. In this case, we could stay in here and talk to each other.’

‘That’d be awesome.’ Jim grinned, until his gaze met Spock’s. ‘That’s a real bummer’, he added, understanding and feeling a real teaser. ‘My surprise for you is also ready, and until I got this stupid shed done both of us are definitely too tired for something like that. Well, it’s no use.’ With that, he stood up, slipped into his jacket and went outside.

Even though he had hoped for it with all his mind, he could barely believe what he saw in front of the door: Someone had built a wooden shed with windows and put the giant chicken with the black and white feathers already into it. Next to the shed door stood four neatly placed, man-high burlap bags.

Shaking from expectation Jim opened the bags, and as he had inspected them to the last, he couldn’t keep it in anymore. His cry of joy must echo deep into the forest. Four different kinds of grain! The tides seemed to be turning. ‘Thank you’, he whispered to whomever this thanks might reach.

Only a blink of an eye later a word appeared in his head, and he couldn’t have said whether he heard it like Spock’s mental voice or whether he sensed lettering in his head: _Neyul_.

‘Neyul’, he repeated. ‘Is that your name?’

Silence, for a minute or two. _Vasma_ , it shot through his head. Suddenly the snow at his feet seemed to glitter, but as he looked closer, the effect dissipated, and the first word returned to his mind: _Neyul_.

‘Vasma’, Jim whispered. ‘You are Vasma, and this place is called Neyul. Thank you.’

He ignored the anger at the being what kept Spock and him prisoner here. He’d probably never again get a chance like this. He had to use it.

‘Vasma’, he said silently, ‘I am going to show Spock something funny soon. I’m sure you’ve already seen it. If we can get a bit of music this is going to be our best evening in a long time. Do you care to watch? Originally the surprise was for Spock alone, but I believe it is for both of you. I will make a real fool of myself for you.’

 

After Jim had fed the giant chicken, which still was a bit groggy, he hauled the first bag of grain into the cabin. He didn’t want to risk anything, not when it came to food. Images appeared within him, images from his time on Tarsus IV, images of dead bodies, and he struggled to fight them back.

He was being expected by a very curious Spock, who had heard his cheering and interpreted it correctly. His eyes went wide as he saw the bag, and with Jim’s permission he followed him outside to look at the shed. Of course he mustn’t help carrying, and he didn’t even make the attempt to do so, but let Jim do the hauling on his own.

Back in the living room Jim instantly explained what he had learned: “We have news. The biggest ever. This place carries the name Neyul. And the being to which Neyul belongs is called Vasma. Vasma has given the chicken, the shed and the grain to us. And if we’re lucky, we might even get some –‘

Music.

The music sounded. Piano, light and joyous, that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

‘Fascinating.’ Spock’s right brow rose up high as he watched Jim with a knowing look. ‘You are extraordinarily sympathetic. In every dimension.’

‘Just wait whether you’ll still say that soon’, Jim laughed. Suddenly strangely exuberant, he walked on thin ice, maybe ruining everything: ‘My surprise is actually more one for me than for you. To be honest, I actually just want to see your face.’

‘You do see my face every day, Jim.’ Ha, now Spock seemed surprised. Great.

‘Not the way you’re going to look when I show you what I’ve prepared.’

‘In that case I kindly ask to finally be enlightened.’ Spock got his cup, filled it with tea at the hearth and sat down on the couch again. ‘I assume Vasma already knows? That is rather unfair to me, you have to admit.’

Jim’s heart stumbled with sudden affection, entwining itself with the strange exuberance in his chest. This man was great. And now Jim was about to see either his eyebrows or the corners of his mouth rising more than ever before.

He scurried into the sewing room to change. ‘You know, Vasma’, he explained as he did so, ‘where I grew up it’s not usual for men to wear pink tutus. I have no problem with it when others wear something like that, but I wouldn’t even leave the house in something like this if I were paid, at least not when I’m sober. I have made this weird thing to enjoy a moment that’s only going to last a few seconds, but it’s worth it. When you see Spock’s face soon, you’ll understand. I’m actually not quite sure whether he’ll be confused or amused, but to see me in _this_ thing he definitely won’t expect. So all this will be worth it. Turn up the music when I come out, alright? I will do a few spins if you help me.’

Heavens, where did he take this ease from to talk so confidentially with their prison guard? This being was keeping them here, had let them go hungry, only reluctantly rewarded them with their benevolence – and Jim talked to them as if they were old friends. Or as if Vasma was a deity.

As a child, as a very small child, Jim had prayed to God and pleaded him to free him from Frank. From his beats and his words, sometimes hurting him even worse. But he hadn’t gotten rid of Frank until he had moved out from home. Don’t think of it, he adjured himself. For some reason, Vasma seemed to have determined she liked him, and he wouldn’t let this chance pass unused. Additionally, this wasn’t mainly about Vasma but about that what Jim wanted to see, absolutely and instantly.

Eyebrows?

Corners of the mouth?

What awesome countenance would Spock present him with?

Jim had reckoned with everything – but not with Spock dropping to his side from laughter, letting his teacup slip as James Tiberius Kirk jumped into the room with a pointedly gracile move of his arm to Vasma’s rising piano play, wearing a tutu.


	40. #40

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

‚I believe we can assume it would have been the easier alternative to travel to the hospital‘, Spock stated.

‚But then T’Lenn and Silak would have gotten it their way, and that would have incredibly annoyed me‘, Leonard snorted. ‚T‘Lenn can very well take the trouble and come here. Can’t bother her too much, at least it’s much more _logical_ than you having to go there.‘

It had taken Sarek several conversations with Doctor Silak and Doctor T’Lenn for the latter to agree on visiting Spock. At first she had insisted on Spock having to come to the hospital if he wanted for her to examine him.

Leonard had gotten rather displeased afterwards and had informed Leonard that ‚it was completely out of the question to drag Spock through the whole city in his condition‘.

Now, as T’Lenn only now, three days after Sarek had approached her, had the time to come here, these arguments had somehow lost their strength. Spock had given in to Leonard and was eating regularly, prompting Leonard to reduce the IV nutrition to a minimum. Despite how much Spock still had to force himself to eat, it was a relief to no longer be attached to several infusions at the same time, and since the previous day Leonard only activated the biofunction monitors at night when he laid down to get some sleep himself.

According to Leonard, Spock’s organs had revocered mostly and were functioning without impairment; lasting damages were not to be expected. Yet aside from that, Spock had lost all his strength and stamina in the past weeks after collapsing in Jim’s office on the new _Enterprise_. To regain those would take a long time, and after weeks of lying down Spock was unable to move too fast without his blood pressure becoming irregular.

But Spock was thoroughly tired of only lying in bed by now, and because it did not pose a problem anymore to sit up in bed with the bedhead being lifted up, Leonard had given in and helped him to sit in the wheelchair Sarek had obtained so he could meet T’Lenn, who was due to arrive shortly.

‚And you’re sure you can do this?‘ Leonard asked once more, his fingers drumming on the table he was sitting at.

‚That depends on what T’Lenn will find, _should_ she find something‘, Spock answered truthfully. He was by no means sure. There was little he was still sure of, but among this was his wish to be honest with Leonard. Spock looked down on his hands on the armrests of the wheelchair. When he lifted them up, they were still trembling, and heavier objects than an almost empty cup would simply slip through his fingers. But he was able to eat by himself now, and he could have worked on his PADD, had there been anything he would have wanted to do with it.

The crew of the _Enterprise_ kept sending daily messages to Leonard and asking about Spock, who could not bring himself to contact them. Not even Nyota. Especially not Nyota.

Jim, almost breaking down with laughter on the mattress, after Nyota … after she had visited Spock. One of the last really clear memories of Jim he had. Spock felt far from ready to deal with the cause of these emotions – and what they were causing now.

He shut his eyes tightly as dizziness that had nothing to do with his physical condition impaired his eyesight.

He did now want to have T’Lenn in his head. He did not want her to …

A knock on the door. Sarek never entered without announcement. ‚T’Lenn has arrived‘, he informed them and look at Spock. ‚Are you prepared?‘

‚Let her in.‘ Spock knew he would never again be fully prepared for anything. He felt Leonard’s doubtful look resting on him and tried to push the memories of Jim aside.

Doctor T’Lenn’s reputation was excellent; she had studied on homeplanets of other telepathically gifted species and was familiar with all imaginable mental processes.

‚Commander Spock, Doctor McCoy‘, she greeted them with perfected Vulcan courtesy, which in truth was nothing other then complete indifference.

There it was again, the fleeting bitterness Spock was feeling regularly.

Leonard’s welcoming was disturbingly unemotional.

T’Lenn’s appearance was radiating complete professionality. Her accurate hair made Spock very self-conscious about his own semblance. Leonard helped him with shaving and shortened his hair, but _orderly_ was something  entirely different in Spock’s eyes.

T’Lenn sat down facing Leonard and Spock. ‚You are now ready to engage in a mindmeld to search for clues about the cause for your health issues in the previous weeks‘, she said.

‚That is correct‘, Spock confirmed. ‚My memories are fragmentary, but I am certain I have clues concerning the cause. Should you additionally find any clues for the reason of … Captain Kirk’s … death, I am particularly interested in them.‘

Next to him, Leonard tensed up and Spock’s voice almost faltered. But he would not lose control in front of T’Lenn – the little control he had over himself, anyways.

‚I understand. Do you wish to lie down or remain sitting up?‘ T’Lenn’s left eyebrow had risen up slightly. She could not possibly have missed how far Spock was from extinguishing his emotions.

‚I prefer to remain sitting up‘, Spock clarified. ‚Aside from my missing memories I cannot meditate adequately and I am still unable to control my telepathic ablities.‘

‚I shall see whether I can find out the cause for that.‘ T’Lenn rose up.

Spock almost flinched as her hand closed in on his face, but he controlled himself and nodded invitingly. ‚I am ready.‘

Seldom before any words had ever felt so much like a lie, and he shivered as T’Lenn’s fingers touched him.

 _Show me what you can remember_ , T’Lenn’s voice asked in his head.

Spock concentrated on his first dream he had had in the very night Ambassador Spock had died.

Little by little, T’Lenn worked her way through the memories he was able to show her deliberately. She was progressing very discreetly and ignored the scenes he did not want her to see but could not hide.

What she recognized was the emotional turmoil which sometimes almost took his sanity, and no matter how hard he tried to not show her _that_ only made it more intense.

T’Lenn did not comment on anything she saw, even as she eventually tried to advance into Spock’s subconscious to fathom the memories and emotions which were impalpable to him. The knowledge about how nothing was going to try and pull him away in his sleep anymore. The incapability to acknowledge Jim’s death, rooted deep within him.

T’Lenn’s grasp around his mind grew tighter. _Your Captain’s death is impairing your concentration. Focus your thoughts on the essential._

Spock felt petulance rise within him.

He had to go back.

A thought, familiar and yet barely comprehensible. Back?

They were gone. Both. Vanished.

Who? To where?

T’Lenn could see every theory Jim, Leonard and Spock had postulated concerning the incidents since Ambassador Spock’s death. She lingered with none of them.

‚… continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony.‘

A memory, overwhelming Spock. Suddenly ever muscle in his body cramped up. He opened his eyes, ducking away from under T’Lenn’s hand and pressed his hands in his temples as a sharp pain shot through his head.

‚Spock!‘ Leonard grasped his shoulders and held him, because he otherwise would have collapsed. ‚What was that?‘

‚You must not disrupt the connection this abruptly‘, T’Lenn’s voice sounded from far away.

Spock could not answer. Only when Leonard injected him with an analgesic he was able to sit up again. ‚What have you seen?‘ he asked, voice hoarse. He felt dizzy.

T’Lenn sat down again. ‚Nothing that indicates any conclusive explanation‘, she was forthright about the point. ‚Tags of memories making no sense and not even appearing to be real. In addition I could perceive a large emotional instability, which ist he reason why you cannot meditate deeply and effciently use or block out your telepathic perception.‘

Spock knew that T’Lenn was entirely correct by using the term _emotional instability_ , and he did not have the strength to try and deny it. Yet his petulance was still growing. ‚Tags of memories, not appearing to be real? What does that mean?‘ he pressed on. Slowly, the dizzyness subsided.

‚Your experiences in your sleep appear to be dream images you are unable to discern from real occurrences.‘

Spock bent forwards, rested his hands on the edge oft he table. ‚What do you indicate? That I cannot distinguish between dream and reality? They have not been dreams, Doctor T’Lenn. They did almost kill me.‘

Now T’Lenn’s brows rose distinctly before her eyes shifted between Leonard and Spock. ‚You are the first descendant out of a connection between Vulcans and Humans who has reached adulthood. And a Vulcan who spends his time among Humans without having regular contact to others of his kind. As far as I am informed you have always showed good abilities in mental processes?‘

Spock nodded, clueless about what she was aiming at.

‚The influence of your human heritage in combination with the influence of the humans around you, among who you have been living almost exclusively for years might have impaired these abilities. You started to dream. Your body was incapable of processing these contradictory sensations. Your condition worsened when your human companions cared for you more intensely. And eventually, as Captain Kirk shared his memories and emotions with you, your already weakened body reacted with cardiac failure.‘

During his life, Spock rarely had lost control over himself. The last time had been when he had Jim thought to be lost through Khan’s fault and almost had beaten Khan to death, and before that, when Jim had provoked him during the unfortunate first hours of their acquaintance to get Spock to place him in command over the _Enterprise_.

His hands clenched around the edge of the table until his knuckles bulged. Now it was rage, not weakness making his arms tremble as he bent forward once more. ‚What are you saying?‘

‚Slowly.‘ Leonard’s hand touched his upper arm. ‚Have you completely lost your mind?‘ His voice sounded stone cold as he addressed T’Lenn. ‚You are saying it is _Jim Kirk’s_ fault Spock almost died? Are you aware that he was _everything_ that kept him alive before we arrived here? Damn, are you going to ignore everything I tried to tell you? What _Spock_ assumes? You got to have seen that.‘

‚I have, Doctor McCoy‘, T’Lenn retorted and sounded as condescending as an emotionless Vulcan could sound. ‚None of these assumptions have any basis in Vulcan exploration oft he mind; there is no reason to pursue them further.‘

Spock felt his heart race. ‚You … are thus completely ignoring what happened to Jim … to Captain Kirk. _His_ symptoms had been fairly similar to mine in the beginning. And it started for both of us when Ambassador Spock died.‘ He forced these words through clenched teeth.

‚It may be you have sensed the Ambassador’s death – the telepathic abilities of both of you have been very strong, and as you are the same person from two timelines, there could have developed a connection. Should my theory about the influence of human emotions on you be correct, this could also explain why James Kirk was showing the same symptoms as you – in attenuated intensity.‘

Spock stared down at his hands. ‚Out‘, he murmured and lifted his eyes, giving up on any attempt to control his anger. It was no use anyways. ‚Go. Now!‘

‚Commander Spock, you cannot …‘

‚WHAT?!‘ Now he was shouting. ‚Just see whether I can! Get out! Spare me this horseshit! What happened to me is not the fault of any human, and maybe it was just a _coincidence_ that Jim Kirk died of cardiac failure? Or was this _my_ mental influence and it is _my_ fault?‘ He could barely see T’Lenn anymore, the room seemed to turn into a dark tunnel.

‚You heard him‘, Leonard snapped. ‚We don’t need your _help_.‘

‚Doctor T’Lenn, it might indeed be better if you left.‘ That was Sarek, and finally, finally T’Lenn got up, and she said something else, but Spock did not understand that anymore, and then she and Sarek were gone.

‚Spock. Hey.‘ That was Leonard, his voice shaking from anger and concern. ‚Look at me, She’s gone. And goddamn, she won’t get in here again as long as I got a say in that.‘

Spock could barely focus on Leonard. He bent over him, held him at the shoulders so he remained sitting up.

T’Lenn’s words plowed into him as he tried to remain conscious. Was his fury directed at her? Or was it more about himself?

‚Is it my fault, Leonard?‘ he asked, barely understanding his own voice.

Leonard’s fingers bore into his shoulders. ‚After you’ve been quoting me so neatly, let me quote you: Horseshit, Spock. Fuck, we shouldn’t have hoped for this bigoted, know-it-all, arrogant, indifferent elven gang to help us in the first place.‘

Spock nodded, but he felt like the anger at himself and everything he had ever done wrong was eating him up from the inside. He was more than emotionally unstable. All mental training, all discipline, tediously learned ever since he could remember was gone. He was no Vulcan, not _truly_ , he was never going to be, especially not if it meant thinking like T’Lenn. But he was no human either, had never learned and never allowed himself to be one.

As if through murky glass he noticed Leonard checking on him with a tricorder. ‚I don’t like this. You should lie down again.‘

He bit down on his lips so strongly he tasted blood. ‚Leonard … I am sorry. I …‘

‚Spock. Horseshit. Still.‘ Leonard pushed the wheelchair towards the bed. ‚Come on. At least try to help me, you might be only skin and bones, but you’re still damn heavy.‘

‚No.‘ He reached for Leonard’s arm. ‚I want to get out on the balcony. Only for a short time. I cannot bear it in here anymore.‘

‚Spock …‘

‚Please, Leonard.‘

A sigh. ‚Two minutes. And if I can’t yet hook you up to the IVs again …‘ Leonard injected him with a hypospray.

 

Spock blinked against the light as Leonard brought him out on the balcony that connected tot he room. It was early afternoon, New Vulcan’s sun hanging high in the sky.

Sarek’s house was placed in the outlying district of the city, where it was silent during the day. The geological surroundings were quite similar to those on Vulcan. The climate was hot and arid, the landscape dominated by rocky deserts. Spock asked himself whether he was ever going to consider this place home. Whether he had _Vulcan_ ever considered to be his home.

Or whether his home was lost forever.

He felt no urge to return to the _Enterprise_. Not as First Officer and certainly not as a Captain. Nothing about Starfleet seemed appealing to him anymore.

‚It’s not your fault‘, Leonard assured him once more. ‚Really. They wouldn’t have found anything sooner and … it still … would have happened somehow. We didn’t stand a chance against this crap.‘

‚It is not Jim’s fault as well what happened to me‘, Spock whispered and rested his forehead in his hands.

‚Of course not‘, Leonard spat out and his anger at T’Lenn’s claims was unmistakeable.

More than two minutes passed during which Spock kept staring at the distant mountains. ‚Thank you for staying with me, Leonard‘, he whispered eventually. ‚I do not know what I would have done had I woken up here all on my own.‘

Leonard did not say anything. For the moment the hand he rested on Spock’s shoulder was answer enough.


	41. #41

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ooooouuuh, what's that? A new chapter! It is a miracle!

**☆** **Sarek** **☆**

 

Sarek left Doctor McCoy and Spock on their own for a while after he had accompanied Doctor T’Lenn on her way out. He was speculating her words towards Spock.

He had no intention of asking Spock to change his opinion. Concerning T’Lenn’s claims, Spock’s too deep involvement in human emotions may have caused him such massive problems, he could not blame Spock for his anger. Because he himself had been close to humans for decades of his life.

Amanda was existing in memories in his mind, with feelings he did not wish to deny to himself, but no one outside of his thoughts could have ever guessed he had.

Whatever had been happening with Spock, it was over, and they probably would never find out the cause of them as long as Spock did not remember on his own.

There was nothing they could change about that, but it concerned Sarek less than T’Lenn’s assumptions regarding Spock’s current condition, about which she had told him before she left. Sarek was not going to get involved with Spock’s emotional state – regarding that he appeared to have found more suitable support, and a grieving process would take time. Time was something Sarek would willingly grant Spock and Doctor McCoy. But Spock needed at least to learn to control his telepathic sensations again

 

Spock was asleep when Sarek eventually returned to him and Doctor McCoy. The latter had turned on the bioscans of the bad again and was sitting at the table, staring at his PADD. He stood up and came to Sarek even before he had fully entered the room.

‘He’s alright’, he said quietly with a look back at Spock. ‘He’s simply exhausted and fell asleep the moment he was back in bed.’ His mouth was only a thin line. ‘He won’t talk to T’Lenn again. And I’m glad he won’t.’

Was Doctor McCoy expecting Sarek to insist on a continuation of the examinations?

‘I have no intention of forcing anything on Spock. It appears to have been a mistake from the beginning to involve Doctor Silak and his team.’ Yet Sarek had to admit he did not know any more promising alternatives. ‘There is only one issue I need to talk to you about.’

Doctor McCoy was looking at him expectantly. ‘That would be?’

‘Concerning one thing Doctor T’Lenn is right: Spock’s loss of his mental control is a problem. This he will need to regain, and I do not know whether he can accomplish that without professional instruction.’

Doctor McCoy’s face became tense. ‘More experts rummaging about in his head?’

‘Such an invasive approach would not be necessary. It mostly is about guidance to achieve mental states that are required for meditation, to raise shields against penetration from telepathic intrusions from the outside or simply to learn anew how to block out telepathic sensations during skin to skin contact.’

The suspicion in Doctor McCoy’s eyes receded. ‘I understand. Will this … have time?’

Sarek hoped Doctor McCoy would one day be able to comprehend his gratitude towards him for staying on New Vulcan to help Spock. ‘It is not a life-threatening condition’, he assured him. ‘Yet very unpleasant. You have witnessed him today. His anger was justified, but at the same time unregulated.’

‘Ambassador, we both know he would have thrown T’Lenn at the wall and choked her had he been able to’, Doctor McCoy interrupted him silently.

Sarek nodded. They both had been present four years ago when Jim Kirk had provoked Spock on the bridge of the _Enterprise_ , shortly after the destruction of Vulcan. ‘That is what I mean. As a Vulcan his emotions are, as long as they are that unregulated, extremely intense to him. When we are unable to control our anger, we tend to aggressive actions. Are you familiar with Vulcan history?’

‘Not really’, Doctor McCoy admitted. ‘I’m a doctor, not a historian. Vulcan physiology is something no one needs to lecture me about anymore though.’

‘I can recommend you some informative, not too excessive texts that deal with the development of today’s Vulcan society. They can help to understand what is discomforting Spock, among other things.’

‘Thank you, Ambassador.’

‚There is something else you ought to know.‘ Sarek had hesitated before telling Doctor McCoy this, but after T’Lenn’s visit he considered it as most important. ‘I asked you once before not to consider Doctor Silak as representative of Vulcan society. He has always been focused on absolute logic, but his and Doctor T’Lenn’s strict views confirm the observations Ambassador Spock and I have made in the years since the destruction of Vulcan.’

Doctor McCoys eyes flickered to Spock as Sarek mentioned his pendant from the original timeline. They had worked together, there had been no way of avoiding that, and in addition, Sarek had felt no wish for avoidance, as disturbing it had been to face his son who was almost twice his age and so very different from the Spock Sarek had raised.

‘What ovservations?’

‘Insecurity. On Vulcan, six billion Vulcans have lived. Here there are about eleven thousand five hundred remaining at this time, plus a few hundred who are not living on this planet. The rate of birth has increased, something logic practically dictates us, but still the majority of Vulcan culture has been lost. The influence of other cultures on the other hand is much higher because we have been and still are dependant on the support of other federation members in building and preserving this colony.’

‘And now they’re afraid that Vulcans, as they’ve been known for millennia, will no longer be as they are now in a few generations.’ Doctor McCoy was too intelligent not to be able to follow Sarek. ‘So they defend the culture all the more vehemently and fight every kind of change. And everything that might cause their carefully upheld worldview to topple can simply not possibly exist.’

‘Affirmative. Ambassador Spock and I had agreed that culture can change and sometimes even _must_ to survive, but we met much resistance.’ He allowed himself a faint smile. ‘Logic or not, fear is an emotion that is foreign to no Vulcan. None, Doctor McCoy. I do not aim to apologize anything, but you need to know you are dealing with a changing society whose principles are not exactly built on change and flexibility.’

For a moment Doctor McCoy seemed to smile. ‘I have observed that before.’

‘Father.’

They both stopped and turned to Spock, who was looking at them. He was obviously tired, but also seemed decidedly thoughtful and … confused?

‘Spock?’ Sarek followed Doctor McCoy to Spock’s bed.

Spock’s eyes flickered between them and fixed on Sarek. ‘Have I … I have never been to Tarsus IV, have I?’ he asked.

Doctor McCoy escaped a sharp ‘shit’.

Sarek inclined his head. ‘If so, only during the past few years since you have joined Starfleet, but not in your youth.’

Spock nodded as if he had anticipated that, and stared at the ceiling, frowning. ‘I have remembered … but … it is not my memory, is it?’

‘No, Spock. It’s not.’ Doctor McCoy’s voice was barely audible.

Sarek understood. Jim Kirk must have lived on Tarsus IV, probably even at the same time as Kodos. In his last desparate attempt to keep Spock from falling asleep shortly before their arrival he had shown him these – and possibly more memories.

‘It is Jim’, Spock whispered, his eyes full of pure agony. ‘He has …’

Doctor McCoy cast Sarek an almost apologizing glance, prompting him to retreat to the door. Concerning Jim Kirk Spock and Doctor McCoy shared a world he had no access to, and he was not going to force his way into it.

After a short farewell he left them both alone, pondering whether Spock would be willing to work with tutors to help him regain his mental control.


	42. #42

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

Jim’s memories of Tarsus IV, becoming apparent on Spock’s agonized face, brought something back in Leonard. After he had only been able to feel himself these past days when he was dealing directly with Spock’s physical condition, this current experience made him feel the pain of Jim’s death with full force again for the first time.

When Jim had died for the first time Leonard had had to admit to himself how much he had thrown himself into his friendship with this walking chaos. How much he had been depending on Jim’s presence in his life. After the dirty divorce Jim had been the first person with whom Leonard could laugh again. And get drunk. And talk, yes, that too, while drunk and sometimes even when sober. About Joanna, about how much he missed her and that it drove him mad to most likely only be able to have contact with her again when she was of age and could make her own decisions. Assumed, she would still want to have anything to do with her father. Jim even knew about all the damn rest. _Had_. Had known about it.

On the other hand, for a long time Leonard had been the only one Jim had allowed coming close on a personal level. Who had known about the state he had been in during his youth and how little he actually believed to deserve affection.

Early during their first year at the academy Jim had made himself known through his cocky remark to Captain Pike that he was going to go through the four year training in only three. He was known a daredevil, had shared the bed with about half of the academy and appeared to be the most confident person in the galaxy – something one did not only make friends with. But a friend Jim truly was. _Been._ Had been. He had been a great friend. He had always proven to be loyal towards Leonard, despite his youth and shady reputation. He jumped from bed to bed and wasn’t picky about it, but whomever he truly committed to, he remained true. _Had_. Had he been true to, to the end.

To look into Spock’s face, whom Jim had showed all the shit from his past prior to their arrival on New Vulcan, to keep him awake – it hurt. Not becaue Leonard was jealous, this was not kindergarten. It hurt, because this way he could meet Jim once more, even if not as intense as Spock. He didn’t want to miss a second of Jim’s last legacy, even though that meant to suffer like hell and to watch Spock suffering as well.

‘What’s with Jim?’ he asked silently after Spock had remained still for minutes, still and breathing and virtually twisting in agony.

‘Hand’, Spock uttered.

‘Mine?’ Leonard asked befuddled. Did Spock seriously want him to hold his hand?

‘ _Mine_. No, _Jim’s_. Jim’s hand had reached for the other hand, Sam’s hand, Sam, his … his …‘

‘Brother’, Leonard croaked. ‘Sam is Jim’s brother, Spock. His older brother. He was Jim’s everything until after Tarsus IV. His anchor.‘

‚And – then?‘ Spock gasped for air, eyes unnaturally wide due to the horror playing out in his head. The executions. Certainly he was watching the executions, feeling Jim’s panic, who had been certain he and Sam were not going to survive this unparalleled massacre.

Startled, Leonard realized he had been giving Spock the impression that he was going to watch Sam die with his own eyes within the next minutes. ‘No Spock, not what you’re thinking now’, he hastily explained. ‘Jim and Sam were rescued in time and brought back to Iowa, but Sam has left the family shortly after. Without Jim. And after his mother had been playing the rueful one for a short while, he was left alone with the asshole for good.‘ Leonard swallowed hard. During this time he knew Jim had started to hurt himself with needles whenever panic threatened to overwhelm him. Nobody had been there to calm him down, to _protect_ him.

‘What asshole?’ Spock’s voice was trembling, sounded endlessly _small_. Sounded like Jim when he was drunk and completely wasted. Or like Jim with thirteen.

‘Frank’, Leonard murmured. ‚Jim’s stepfather. I’m afraid you’re going to get to know him within the next hours or days. And that’s not going to be fun for you, Spock, because you can’t isolate yourself from that in the least right now. But maybe – maybe you can look at it that way. Listen closely, okay?’

Spock’s agitated, asking gaze met him and made him shiver. Because there was also _Jim_ , an echo of Jim in Spock’s dark, damp eyes.

‘What you are living through now is the last thing Jim was able to give to you.’ Leonard’s voice broke, his eyes were burning, but he forced himself to continue: ‘These are fucked up, utterly fucked up things he experienced, and even though they were not his only memories they were the ones who kept you alive. The most helpful. He would have liked to know you better, Spock. I believe you know that. O no, don’t look at me like that, don’t beat yourself up again, this was not meant as an accusation. What I want to say with it is this: _You_ now have the chance to get to know Jim better, even though he’s no longer here. This is going to be tough, but please try to … to consider it as a gift. From Jim. He trusted you, and he wanted to save you. At all cost. And you are here. Don’t throw that away only because it’s cruel. Don’t hate it. It is _Jim_. Learn to truly know him, Spock. And the parts of him you lack, the good parts, the weird parts, the funny parts – of these _I_ will tell you when you are well enough so we can go get a drink somewhere.’

There were no words to describe Spock’s face. He closed his eyes, silent tears running down his face as Leonard once more rested a hand on his shoulder.


	43. #43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another update, perhaps the most risky one, as we might lose readers over this. But it is what is.

**☆** **Jim** **☆**

 

‚You just wait. You’ll get to know me after all.‘ Jim’s voice sounded strained, but he was having trouble suppressing his grin.

Within four days he had processed most of the contents of the first bag of grain to flour – with a wooden mortar and pestle – and there was not a fibre in his body that didn’t hurt. Nevertheless he hadn’t allow himself to rest, whatever Spock kept saying to change his mind. The memory of Tarsus IV was nagging him and prevented him from resting, even though he was aware hat life in Neyul had its own rules. Vasma’s rules. Still: thoroughly packed flour was much safer than grain in a bag, and he didn’t care about barely being able to stand up anymore.

‘And I thought I had already done that’, Spock responded, filling the flour into tin cans and keeping an eye on the flatbread they were making out of said flour, Emily’s eggs and salt.

Emily. That was what Jim had named the giant chicken.

As a child he had wished fot two Oonip as pets, Tellaritian birds with biolumiscent plumage. The female he would have called Emily, the male Simon. Of course he had known that Iowa didn’t have the right climatic conditions for the keeping of Oonip, but this had been his dream until … until Tarsus IV. After that there had been no more room for dreams in Jim’s head.

Grown Oonip could reach a height of one meter and eighty centimetres. They descended from a Tellaritian pterosaur whose scales had been bioluminescent as well and that had been worshipped as a deity by early Tellaritians. The chicken was about the size of a grown Oonip, and thus had to be called Emily, as Jim had explained to Spock with juvenile excitement he had long thought lost.

The flatbread they had Emily’s eggs to thank for, burned easily, was dry and crumbly – and the damn best thing Jim had ever eaten.

He snorted pointedly annoyed in Spock’s direction.

‘Well, my name is Spock’, he continued unimpressedly. ‘And I have the pleasure with the Fairy of Neyul, if I remember correctly.’

‘You remember wrong’, Jim snapped. ‘Spock, you can’t keep this up forever.’

‘ _Forever_ indeed is too ambitious an expression and, in addition, rather nebulous. How about a week?’

‘So, three more days? Okay.’

‘One week from now.’

‘Spock!’

‚You have to thank yourself for this, Fairy of Neyul. You cannot dance through the living room dressed in a tutu, almost causing me to fall to the ground and then expect me to simply leave it at that.’ Spock’s smirk seemed to fill up the entire cabin, and with that, he got him. For the rest of today Jim no longer could pretend to be annoyed.

Shit, he loved it. The banter with Spock – it was awesome. Should it ever, he would slip again into a pink tutu, he was almost certain of that – and that scared him. Besides, most of what he felt for Spock by now scared him. He couldn’t quite name it, and it was so intense. So _big_. It was almost more than he could bear.

‘Is everything alright?‘ Spock asked, maybe because Jim had been staring into the air for a moment. To take a joke too far was not Spock’s style.

‘Yes.’ Jim’s smile faded, but the wheat saved him. ‘That’s the last handful’, he said, bent down and took up what was left in the bag.

‘Afterwards you are going to take a break. A whole day at least.’ Spock’s voice sounded different as he was watching Jim milling the remaining wheat. Not like a well-meant advice but – an order? No, Spock didn’t give him orders. It was a firm request, put into words in a way that didn’t leave Jim any choice.

Jim nodded. He hadn’t planned to do so, the rye was waiting, but for now they had more than enough flour and his shoulders and back were killing him.

‘Good.’ With that, the matter was settled for Spock, and when all wheat had been processed, he began cleaning the table and preparing it for their meal, while Jim dragged himself into the bathroom next door.

 

‚Spock? May I ask you something personal?‘

They had turned off the electric lights, sitting on the couch in the light of the fire, letting their senses come to a rest. Something Jim had learned from Spock: to not go to sleep immediately, even if he was tired, but to first spend some time with himself and to reflect the day.

‘I hope I have never given you reason to believe you may not, Jim.’

‘No, of course not’, Jim reassured him. ‘But the question is somewhat … particular.’

Spock’s attentive eyes seemed to become even deeper in the warm light of the fire. ‘I do not mind particular questions. And should I be able to do so, you will receive a particular answer.’

Jim nodded, still timid, but wanting to get it over with: ‘How long has it been in your timeline that she – is gone? When has she died? Nyota. Or did you break up eventually, like Spock and Nyota from this dimension?‘

Spock’s face slipped, and however much Jim usually loved to watch this, now it shook him just as much. Spock looked _horrified_. ‘Commander Uhura and myself?’

‚Uh.‘ Jim swallowed. ‚Yes? Well, I don’t know her eventual rank, but I was talking about her.‘

‘Commander Uhura and I have at no time been in any romantic relationship’, Spock said, having regained control over his face within seconds.

Instead it was now Jim feeling like _his_ face was dropping. ‘No time? No as in _never_?’

‚No as in never‘, Spock affirmed. He seemed to think, and he noticeably chose his next words carefully: ‘It has unsettled me deeply to see the circumstances in your timeline to be so different, Jim.’

Unsettled? Spock? _This_ Spock? Jim was astonished. ‘But you still knew and liked Nyota?’

Now Spock smiled, much to Jim’s relief. ‘Certainly. I was Montgomery Scott’s groomsman.’

‘Scotty’s …? Whoa. Really? And Nyota? Who was _her_ best man?‘ Jim almost saw the scene before his eyes, saw himself, his older self as it –

‘Leonard. Doctor McCoy.’ Spock grinned, truly _grinned_. ‚Someone needed to marry them, Jim.‘

Jim opened his mouth, trying to answer – and what came out of him was a sob, unexpected and strong. Before he knew what happened, he crinkled up on the couch like an embryo as his body was shaking from unrestrained, desperate crying. He missed them. He missed them all. He missed the young Spock who was lost forever, and he missed Bones.

Jim had no idea what was happening, but suddenly he found his head lying on Spock’s lap, clawing into his knee, because he _needed_ to hold on to something, and felt Spock’s comforting hands in his hair, managing to slowly, slowly calming him down, like they always did.

‘Do you wish to hear an answer you could not have anticipated?’ Spock’s voice sounded fragile and lost and endlessly _old_. ‚It might possibly overwhelm you, but I …’ A quiver went through Spock’s body. Was he weeping? Was he too weeping? Spock, _this_ Spock?

‚I know it‘, Jim whimpered, and in that very moment it became truth: ‚I can feel it, it’s coming … coming somehow from you into my head.’

Spock’s finger in his hair, on his skin. ‘I apologize.’ A murmur, a shaking voice. Incredible, that there was something that made _this_ Spock not deliberately giving up control but to completely lose it.

‘I think he could have become _Everything_ for me’, Jim forced over his trembling lips. ‘Spock, the young Spock. I … just didn’t know until … now.’ And he wouldn’t have wanted me anyway, something whispered in the back of his head, something that was evil and cold and fucked up and that was most likely right.

The line. This was it, the line that had always showed itself sooner or later during their conversations _before_ Neyul. The silence and emptiness in Spock’s eyes had not only been due to his grief over his lost friend. During every single of their conversations he had looked into the eyes of his deceased partner – knowing to have a younger counterpart himself. The situation must have been unfathomably painful for the older Spock, and still he had not withdrawn from Jim. He had been there for him and had urged him to be patient with the young Spock. To never give him up. Because he had believed in this dimension things would turn out as he had known and loved as well.

No answer. Spock wept. Soundlessly, but he wept, his body trembling slightly, and something in Jim’s chest was being ripped apart. ‘Tell me about him’, he whispered. ‘About your Jim. Everything you can. Or show him to me in your mind. Whatever you want. Please.‘

Minutes passed before Spock’s voice sounded, still frail, but full of love: ‘My Jim was stubborn. He was used to not only fulfill expectations placed in him, but to exceed them. He was the centre of a loving family and later the centre of a devoted crew who would have died for him and vice versa. Whatever he did, he did it with all his heart.

In his youth he fell in love easily, frequently and strongly. Barely a week passed by that his heart was not lying naked and open in the hands of a different woman, sometimes a man. Non-recurring sexual adventures were not his style in the long run, he wanted to love or at least to imagine to love.

He committedly wrote horribly cheesy poems for his beloved, and sometimes he read them to me in my quarters, blushing, to find out whether he was going to make a fool of himself with them. This was mostly the case, but it did not keep him from sending these poems to the recipient or present them in person. After every ending romance he was devastated.

It would take years until he admitted to himself and to me that he mainly had been searching for love so vehemently because he actually had already found it – and thought himself without a chance. And that he was. He was without a chance, because I was not ready. I was not ready for decades, and after every small approach during that time I sought for distance. When we eventually found each other, we both were not young anymore. But that did not matter. We took what he had denied ourselves, without regard for age or opinions. And of course Doctor McCoy had known everything almost from the beginning.

My Jim needed to learn humility, needed to understand that he was not the centre of the universe, and he only succeeded in that when he was way past his youth. Only the centre of _my_ universe, that he has always been, and he learned he did not want to be anything else.

My Jim was endlessly capable of loving and in need of being loved and until the end sometimes a terrible bighead, but mostly only in front of me. Almost everything I know about myself today I would have never found out without him. Up to this day I do not know how I am supposed to exist without my Jim, and yet I do.’

Jim’s head was spinning. His throat aching. God! He wanted to cry again, felt himself thoroughly out of placce, he was only a toddler compared to _this_ Jim, wasn’t he? And in that moment he understood what it was he felt for Spock, for _this_ Spock, and certainty was eating him up from the inside.

‘My Jim’, Spock continued almost voicelessly, before Jim could think any further, ‘has never had the feeling of being the centre of the universe. He trustingly has opened his mind to me, and I got to know a person who did not need any more lectures in humility, as he has been living in a state of constant humiliation during his childhood and adolescence.

My Jim is vulnerable and insecure – and a talented actor whenever he needs to hide these characteristics. He does not fall in love easily but needs time to develop deep affection. He is not hesitant when it comes to physical love, but he does not give away his heart easily because it has been betrayed too often.

My Jim is very confused right now and barely dares to breath. I fear for him because I do not know for how long I will be able to accompany him. But I wish to do so, as long as it is possible for me. That is all I wish for anymore. And I do not have any expectations. Not a single one.’

Silence.

The silence took over Spock and Jim, took over the cabin, yes, took over all of Neyul, and then soft music sounded around them. The sounds of a harp. Vasma seemed to appreciate strong emotions.

‘I am capable of playing this instrument, Vasma’, Spock said silently, after what seemed to be hours. ‘Maybe one day we will play together, what do you think?’

As soon as he had stopped speaking, a Vulcan harp materialized on the table in front of them.

Through a veil of tears Jim blinked at the instrument. His breathing was still shallow, he felt weak, felt one hundred percent wrong and unworthy. But there was this feeling within him, in his head and his chest, and he could no longer suppress it.

‘Can this wait until tomorrow, Vasma?’ he asked faintly. ‘I think – I think I shouldn’t have to share Spock today.’ With that he sat up and looked into Spocks face, emitting honest helplessness.

They hadn’t chosen Neyul, both of them. They hadn’t chosen _each other_. Yet still, they did so now, fully aware of all consequences. ‘Your Jim hopes you will be able to view him as a soul that wants to learn’, Jim whispered, his chin trembling. ‘Not as the silly child he is, compared to you.’

Spock’s cautious, faint smile brightened the room, brightened Jim’s mind, Jim’s whole consciousness. ‘My Jim will need to learn to develop a better opinion of himself’, he said with the warmest of imaginable voices.

Vasma was here.

Vasma was watching them.

Vasma was attentive, always and everywhere.

Jim had once researched something, back when he had been so confused, because Nyota and Spock, the younger Spock, had kissed each other in front of his eyes, even though it was commonly known that Vulcans usually didn’t do things like that in public. Yes, he had read about it and even believed to understand it. There were things one didn’t like to share with everyone, and he had estimated the younger Spock to think like that too, and maybe he simply hadn’t wanted to provoke an argument with Nyota. And he estimated Spock, the Spock in front of him, to be just like that: sensitive and subtle.

‘I’ll do my best’, he promised thinly, groping for Spock’s hand and intertwining their index and middle fingers timidly into a Vulcan kiss.

To live in the moment and to give it room. That as well Jim had learned from Spock.


	44. #44

**☆** **Spock** **☆**

 

During the days following T’Lenn’s visit Spock had remembered more, day by day, and every night new memories haunted him in his dreams – memories that had been buried deep within Jim’s mind so he would not have to deal with them constantly.

He, Spock, was completely at their mercy, like he was at the mercy of everything his subconscious revealed. He could not suppress anything. Bury anything. For the reason alone that it was _Jim_. Jim, in his head.

He was sitting in his bed, staring at his hands. Hands he kept opening and closing again and again, as if he could feel _Jim’s_ hands again through this, like back then, aeons ago that seemed to have passed like seconds.

He remembered. The semi-conscious state during which everything he had sensed had been pain and Jim’s voice. Jim’s voice that had kept him awake, had prevented him from falling asleep. Until he just could not do it anymore, until he had no longer been able to hear Jim’s voice.

Then the heat of Jim’s hands had shot through his own, accompanied by pictures a part of him wanted to forget while the other part would never have given them up. Ever.

Leonard was sitting next to him, on the edge of the bed. For days thay had been sitting next to each other like that, for hours, while Spock was remembering more every day, every hour.

A mindmeld was a complicated affair. Jim had held Spock’s hands for less than an hour before they had been separated, and yet the memories Spock had received could fill days. They could fill weeks, months, years and the emotions were enough to stay with him for a lifetime.

Spock rarely voiced what he saw. Sometimes, during the worst moments, Leonard asked, and Spock answered. He always answered, and every now and then he felt Leonard’s hand on his shoulder or his back afterwards.

Now it had stopped. Spock knew it because he remembered everything that had happened, up until the moment Jim had been taken away from him and then … then his next memory took place almost three weeks later.

‘There is something else I need to remember’, he murmured, eyes closed, head tilted backwards. ‘Something … important. Maybe the most important thing.’ More important than Jim’s memories? That seemed barely possible.

And still: A nagging pain deep inside his head left him no doubt that there was one more memory waiting for him, a memory that had not come from Jim.

‘Don’t force it, Spock’, Leonard answered quietly. ‘The memories will come. And you should rest.’

The flood of memories did not only strain Spock mentally.Ever since T’Lenn’s visit it was harder for him to take in food, and Leonard had to basically force him to every meal. In his sleep he could barely recover, because every newfound memory was haunting him there, until he woke up with a start, dripping with sweat.

‘I must … Leonard, I _must_.’ One of his last certainties.

Leonard sighed. ‘What do you think you can do to remember faster?’

Spock shrugged. ‚I have to succeed in meditating.‘

‚And how do you think you can accomplish that?‘

His breath sounded too loud in his own ears. ‘I am going to need your help.’

A confused hesitation.

‘How?’

‘Make sure I will not be disturbed. My father must not knock or come in. You … have to be still as well. Sit down as comfortably as possible and do not move. If you wish you can activate the bioscans, should I … but when my pulse and breathing decrease, you must not interfere as long as my vital signs do not drop critically low.’

Leonard’s eyes went wide. ‘Spock, if you want to hear my opinion as a doctor: Don’t. You aren’t fit. Damn, you’re frigging lucky your organism is as resilient as it is and has recovered so well, especially after all the stuff Ben and I’ve given you so you stay awake. A human would have needed new kidneys and a new liver afterwards.’

‘Leonard, I am completely aware of the fact that my body has not recovered.’ He felt that, with every move, with every attempt to do anything without Leonard’s help. ‘But I cannot wait for several weeks longer.’ Concerning his full recovery, they were reckoning it would take months anyway – at least in regard of the fitness level Spock had been in as first officer of a starship.

Leonard regarded him for a long while before activating the bioscans with a pinched face, even though he did not even consider them necessary at night anymore.

‘Please turn off all the sounds’, Spock asked and took up a stance that would serve as a compromise between ‘suitable for meditation’ and ‘he could keep up for a prolonged time’. There was no way around Leonard’s presence – even though he left Spock alone for short periods of time by now, he would never to do so in this case.

‘As soon as you pulse drops below a hundred and eighty I’ll have to stop you’, Leonard warned him. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t answer for anything else.’

‘So be it.’ Spock had to grant Leonard this kind of precaution, after everything that had happened.

Leonard got up and retreated to his bed, where he leaned up against the wall and reached for his PADD, presumably to contact Sarek.

Spock’s prior meditation attempts had failed miserably, but never before had they appeared so important to him.

He put his hands together, a touch that made him feel shivers running down his spine. His hands were cool, but he did not feel uncomfortably cold. That was one thing his body had regained control over again, at least in New Vulcan temperatures.

Spock remembered every detail of his preferred meditation techniques, but it took him an agonizingly long time before he managed to concentrate on his breathing intensely enough so it became calmer and deeper.

How he could waken hidden memories he did not know; he was no expert in such techniques. But maybe it would help him to open up to Jim’s memories on this level.

His breathing rhythm quickened again as he thought of everything he had seen.

Tarsus IV. Frank, _the asshole_. Kodos’s speech. Sam’s hand. _Frank’s_ hand. Frank’s words, Frank’s shouting. Pain, from beatings and from needles, followed by emotions that made Spock’s breathing falter.

Then came the tears. Spock did not remember crying as a child. Vulcans were discouraged from such displays of emotion as early as infancy.

He remembered the moment in the reactor room on the _Enterprise_ , when he had watched Jim die behind the glass panel, and how throroughly he had lost control over himself. He had wept then, and even after Jim’s rescue these feelings had stayed with him, even though he had ignored them for a long time.

He also had wept when Jim had sent him his memories, he was aware of that now, despite the incredible horror these memories had contained. They had been Jim’s tears, because everything Jim had felt, Spock had felt too. Yet at the same time they had also been his own, and not only because the intensity of Jim’s childhood and youth made it nearly impossible for him to separate himself from them, and he barely knew who or what he was anymore.

During these thoughts he realized his perception was changing. His blood was rushing through his body, and the whirring of it grew fainter. Leonard’s breathing seemed farther away, but he had not moved, Spock knew that.

What he did not know was whether he would be able to accomplish anything. But … was that correct? Meditation served to calm the mind, to contemplate and to process experiences. In a wake state he could barely endure Jim’s memories, but in beginning trance, between waking and sleeping, under all the pain he could still make out the outlines of his own mind. He could recognize there was something else. There were things beyond the pain, yet to uncover. The pain … from Jim’s memories. And Jim’s death. Jim’s … death? And … yes, what?‘

He felt himself startle and opened his eyes wide.

‘Everything alright?’ Leonard asked from the opposite wall. ‚Was it any good? You’ve been pretty out of it for almost an hour. A few times I thought I had to interrupt. Did it work?‘

Spock nodded. He felt dizzy. ‚A little. I … know I do have answers. And they … have something to do with Jim.‘

He had? Was this what he had recognized as he …

‘Spock!’ Leonard shouted and was with him within seconds to hold him up, because he almost collapsed while sitting up.

‘It is alright. I … I have to try again. Soon. If I think about everything, _everything_ , then … I can come closer to whatever it is I am still missing.’ Not a prospect Spock considered to be particularly enjoyable, but something that was thoroughly necessary.

He saw Leonard swallow. ‘And you think you have answers? Because of … Jim’s death?‘

Spock closed his eyes and opened them again to look at Leonard. ‘Answers. Or at leasts clues. For _more_. This … this is worth it, Leonard. You want to know as well, do you not?‘

Leonard remained silent, and Spock knew he was not the only for whom Jim’s death had opened up a deep abyss that seemed insuperable.

Automatically he raised his right hand and placed it on Leonard’s shoulder. It was a helpless gesture that made himself feel even more helpless, until he strengthened his grip and support himself a little bit more on Leonard’s than necessary.


	45. #45

**#45**

**☆** **Leonard** **☆**

 

It was the worst moment of all and at the same time the first possible one in days. As a doctor Leonard found it hardly acceptable to tell Spock what he ought to have told him long ago. As a friend he felt no differently. Only as designated chief medical officer of the new _Enterprise_ he had no choice anymore, because he was running out of time.

‘Spock, there’s this other thing we need to talk about’, he thus forced over his lips. Spock was now absolutely present and open enough to him to understand how important this conversation was. Spock’s hand on his shoulder – Leonard understood the gesture, and it moved him, even though after a few seconds the Goblin had again pretended to just seek for additional support. He would listen to him now.

Exerted, Spock met his eyes.

‘I’ll make it short’, Leonard seid. ‘I have a contract with Starfleet, just as you do. Two days ago I’ve gotten last orders from Commodore Paris to return to Yorktown. We still have time before launch and Scotty will do his best to delay completion of the _Enterprise_ , but Paris isn’t stupid. Should I refuse to resume my service without solid reason, I’m gonna lose my job.

Thinking time: three standard days. Until tomorrow night. Paris wants me to return, no matter when the ship will start eventually.’

‘Am I …’ Spock blinked, obviously overwhelmed. ‚Am I no solid reason?‘

Leonard sighed and now placed his hand on Spock’s arm. ‘For me you are, and you know that. But objectively considered every medic could treat you further. And strictly speaking you have duties towards Starfleet as well. Paris wants to know whether she can cound on us. You know these paper pushers better than I do, Spock.’

‘In this case we are more accurately dealing with a PADD pusher’, Spock answered very quietly. The tormented line around his mouth returned, indicating the moments when Spock’s feeling of being responsible for every shit in the world was especially strong.

‘Paris’ proposal is us flying back to Yorktown as soon as you’re up for travel. And we come aboard the _Enterprise_ , of course without you holding an executive position at the moment. For now, you’d simply be my patient.’ Leonard’s throat grew tight. It must have been centuries ago that he had given Jim this vaccination so he could take him with him on the _Enterprise_. ‘Paris has no intention of harming our careers, Spock. Quite the contrary, she wants to help us after – all this.’ The memorial services in Jim’s honour were in full swing, and there was no ending in sight.

‘But I do not want to’, Spock uttered, with an impulsivity that made Leonard stop for a moment, but didn’t seriously surprise him after his conversations with Sarek and the recommended literature about Vulcan society and history.

‘Me too’, he was honest. ‘Shit, Spock, I’d hoped you were gonna say something like that. Though they’re all constantly asking for you, and even though Sulu will be a great captin. Hikaru. Not much of a surprise, is it?’

Spock shook his head slightly, and what he then said, anxiously and barely audible made Leoanrd stumble inside: ‘Do they ask for _you_ as well, Leonard?’

No one except Jim asks for me, he thought in painful defiance. ‘No one except you, your father or Ben asks for me’ he answered truthfully. ‘I’m not the type who gets asked for by anyone.’

Spock nodded. This conversation overwhelmed him in many ways, but he didn’t withdraw from Leonard. ‘Ben’, he whispered. ‘Ben Sulu. It feels as if it had been ages. Everything on the _Variance_.’

‘Yes.’ Despite the omnipresent heat Leonard shivered slightly. ‘And because of that, I was aware of that and I’d hoped for it, we can’t simply go back. I will inform Commodore Paris of that with your permission. And if they should sack us both, so be it.’

Hesitation was hanging in the air.

‘Spock?’ Leonard asked.

For a moment, he struggled to breath regularly, but recovered himself instantly. ‘Maybe’, he seemed to choke on his words rather than speaking, ‘maybe _I_ should ask for a conversation with Commodore Paris. I do not wish to go back and I cannot go back, not now, but I am not inclined to force future-oriented decisions.’

Leonard was aghast. Where did this sudden swing in opinion come from? Where did Spock take this sudden willingsness to take action from?

‘Leonard, I cannot allow for Starfleet to irrevocably dismiss you from service because of me.’ Spock’s voice was shaking. ‘But just as little can I at the moment …’ He stopped, and the helpless expression he looked at Leonard with made him appear extremely young.

‘I know.’ Leonard smiled at him and marveled about how easy it was for him to do so towards the Goblin. Smiling. ‘You don’t have to say it, and I won’t leave.’

The gratitude now visible in Spock’s eyes moved Leonard. It moved him again and again. This lad here was not used to this kind of support. Except from Jim. But the Spock Jim had known was far away at the moment, having made room for a considerably more open version of himself, who was stumbling around inside himself, utterly confused.

‘Then I am going to speak with Commodore Paris’, Spock decided. Determination sounded different, but he seemed to be sincere. ‘I will think of a valid reason for why you as a doctor are not indispensable for me right now. No one except myself knows my organism as well as you do.’

Leonard nodded. ‘That didn’t convince her when she heard it from me, but you try it. Shit, and Spock – there’s something else, now that we’re already talking so openly. Uhura. I mean, Nyota. She is, franky speaking, cross with me. She thinks I’m deliberately shielding you from everyone and not telling you she wants to contact you. For whatever reason I would do that. But I can understand her a little bit. And I thought – you two have been close once. Maybe the contact with her could help you, step by step …‘

‘No!’ Again. This impulsivity, combined with shivering anger. ‘I do not wish to speak to Nyota.’

‘Are you going to tell my why?’ Leonard was at a loss.

‘That – that I cannot do’, Spock murmured, suddenly contrite like a school boy. ‘It has to do with Jim, but should I try to put in into words it would not make any sense.’

‘Alright’, Leonard sighed. ‘But she feels bad, Spock. She’s worried. Should I tell her in the face you don’t want to see her? That wouldn’t be very fair. And I have to admit I don’t understand you on this. You know, I didn’t have anyone except Jim, for years. But you – you know, slowly I’m getting the impression this relationship never meant anything to you.’

Spock startled. ‘That is not correct, Leonard’, he claimed. ‘Nyota and I have been intellectually highly compatible, and I still consider her with highest regards and respect. I have also perceived her appearance and smell as pleasant at all times.’

‘I’m impressed, Romeo.’

Again Spock startled, and suddenly Leonard had a suspicion that felt damn bad.

‘Spock? You haven’t been with her only to have a reason to not need to marry the woman your parents had chosen for you, have you? I’ve read quite a bit about Vulcan history; your father had recommended me some very insightful texts.’

‘What texts?’ Spock’s brows shot up, and suddenly he looked almost panicked. Damn, he had enough for today, but Leonard didn’t like to just end the conversation now.

‘Well, about emotions, Surak, logic and all that’, he explained. ‘Among other things I read there what Vulcan culture usually doesn’t intend your own choice of partner. It’s hard to imagine your parents as an interracial pair did that, but the way you are acting right now one could think –‘

‘They had done‘, Spock murmured with slightly narrowed eyes. Now he let his hand sink away from Leonard’s shoulder, while his own hands stayed where they were. ‘T’Pring. That was her name.’

‘Was?’ Leonard bit his lip.

‘She lost her life during the destruction of Vulcan’, Spock said monotonous. ‘But she already had been married at this point. She had asked me to free her, before I joined Starfleet.’

‘Fuck. Spock, I’m sorry. For everything.‘

‚There is nothing you need to apologize for, Leonard.‘ Spock looked like he was going to collaps right then and there should Leonard take away his supporting hand, but his voice was hard from bitterness. ‘Your evaluation of myself does not miss a certain accuracy, even though it lacks background information.’

‘What?’

‘In your words I was an asshole’, Spock forced over his trembling lips, haunted despair in his eys. ‘But I was not aware of that at the time, as I, like I said to you before, have felt and still feel highest possible appreciation for Nyota. And now, Leonard, I ask you as my friend for a postponement of the continuation of our current conversation. I guarantee you that this continuation will happen as soon as I feel capable of giving you satisfying explanations. These explanations appertain to you as my doctor as well.’

Leonard would have liked to tear his his hair our. How could any individual in the universe talk so high-flown, while it looked like a disturbed child with wide eyes and trembling lips? And concerning the content of his words: What the hell?!

‘Now … now I shall prepare my conversation with Commodore Paris, Leonard’ Spock stammered, suddenly much less stiff than seconds before. ‘It is necessary if I plan another attempt to meditate successfully within the next days. I cannot do that with this unsolved situation in mind. You take responsibility for me, and I am going to do that likewise as well.’

‘First you’ll drink something, rest for a while, close you eyes and take a breath’, Leonard decided. ‘No backtalk, otherwise I have to insist on not giving you postponement concerning this conversation. And as I see it, that would be your least preferred option.’

Obediently Spock allowed Leonard to fill him half a cup of tea and laid down after it was empty. Grief began to dominate the atmosphere between them again, and Leonard knew nothing else would have been natural in this early state.


End file.
